Digital Realty flags Sydney datacentre

Digital Realty trust has announced that it has spent $10.7 million on 3.48 hectares of land in Sydney, which it plans to use as a datacentre site.

The Erskine Park site in western Sydney will be able to support 18,600 square metres of datacentre facility, and 11.5MW of IT capacity. The site will be Digital Realty Trust's first Australian investment. The company has previously flagged its intention to make a $350 million investment down under.

The company has secured permits for the development, and said it planned to start building the first of two datacentre facilities (9300 square metres) in the third quarter of 2011. The building will be able to support four 1440kw turn-key datacentre PODs.

Each of the PODs is a physically separate secure facility, with power use metered so that clients only pay for the power they use.

"The acquisition of this site adds a very important market to our portfolio, and is key to our expansion in the Asia Pacific region," said Michael Foust, chief executive officer for Digital Realty Trust in a statement.

"The Sydney market is characterised by a robust business environment, yet has a limited supply of datacentre space available to meet customer demand for highly reliable, flexible and secure facilities."

Kris Kumar, regional head, Asia Pacific Digital Realty Trust, said that he expected the building's shell and core, and the first two of the PODs, to be completed within 12 months.