Aidan Tudehope (Macquarie Government)
The Data Centres and Government subsidiaries of Macquarie Telecom Group have expanded their Canberra presence with the launch of their Intellicentre 5 (IC5) data centre, which has been purpose-built for government workloads.
Worth $17 million, the new “bunker” data centre offers increased capacity for government cloud workloads and an additional secure facility for data backup.
Just like its adjacent Intellicentre 4 (IC4) data centre, the new facility has been designed to achieve Tier IV data centre standards and is SCEC Zone 5 ready.
Additionally, the combined 4-megawatt data centres are supported by over 150 NV1 government-cleared engineers. Including its support centre, this is a 25 per cent increase in cyber security engineers since construction started in July last year.
“Data and cloud demand has skyrocketed as the pandemic continues to bring forward years’ worth of IT and digital transformation projects,” said David Hirst, group executive, Macquarie Data Centres. “Ensuring that data remains secure, sovereign and within Australia’s borders is vital to protecting our national security and privacy interests – this facility embodies that need in every way.”
Macquarie Government managing director Aidan Tudehope claimed that IC5 was “necessary infrastructure” for government agencies”.
“Canberra needs greater diversity in its balance of data storage, protection and management, and the Australian government wants greater competition in the local market that supports government agencies,” he said.
The construction of the new data centre, which concluded in December on budget and on time, resulted in four kilometres of underground electrical conduit, 15 tons of copper in the main cables, as well as generators and a five-ton solar rooftop installation.
Involved with the build was construction company Manteena, which provided the design, build and fit-out, while Canberra-based rack and data centre solutions provider SRA Solutions supplied data centre racks.
The launch of IC5 comes as its parent group recorded a 9 per cent increase in revenue to $143.6 million in its first half year for FY21, with data centres being one of its growth drivers.
“Our strategy of investing in data centres, cloud and cyber security continues to drive further shareholder value and ongoing returns, resulting in 13 halves of profitable growth,” Macquarie Telecom chairman Peter James said.
