NEXTDC plans $2 Billion AI factory and tech campus

NEXTDC has announced a A$2 billion commitment to develop M4 Melbourne, a next-generation digital campus at 127 Todd Road, Port Melbourne. M4 will feature an AI Factory, Mission Critical Operations Centre, and Technology Centre of Excellence. Purpose-built for sovereign AI, HPC, advanced manufacturing and deep tech, the campus strengthens Australia’s competitive edge across the Five Eyes and positions Victoria as a national digital infrastructure hub. “This isn’t just a data centre — it’s critical infrastructure for Australia’s AI future,” said Craig Scroggie, CEO and Managing Director NEXTDC. Located on the former Westgate Park Printing Complex, once home to the nation’s largest newspaper presses, M4 marks the shift from printing stories to producing intelligence. NEXTDC’s Fishermans Bend campus brings together three core facilities: AI Factory: A hyper-dense, liquid-cooled facility engineered for sovereign AI. Designed to support NVIDIA’s Blackwell and Rubin Ultra architectures, it will deliver rack densities beyond 1,000kW — enabling model training, inference, and frontier AI workloads at scale. Mission Critical Operations Centre (MCX): A sovereign-grade, always-on control centre housed within Tier IV infrastructure. MCX provides secure, fault-tolerant environments for high-stakes digital operations — from defence to enterprise and government — where uptime and trust are non-negotiable. Technology Centre of Excellence: A national hub for AI skills, R&D, and innovation. It will support engineers, students, and start-ups to build and operate AI systems onshore — accelerating Australia’s capability in deep tech. Planned infrastructure highlights include: Up to 150MW of power across 50,000m² of mission-critical facilities Liquid cooling systems supporting rack densities exceeding 1,000kW On-site solar and microgrids to drive energy sustainability Waste heat recovery for district-level energy reuse Recycled wastewater cooling enabled through utility integration Software-defined optical fabrics delivering real-time, high-speed AI performance Government and Defence-grade compliance: PSPF, SCEC, HCF, and DISP “M4 has been designed to meet the five critical imperatives for Australia’s AI future — speed, scale, sovereign capability, sustainability, and security,” said Scroggie. Designed as a regional hub for hyperscale AI, defence workloads, and sovereign systems, M4 strengthens Australia’s position in the global AI infrastructure race — delivering secure, sustainable, and future-ready capacity at scale. “Compute is the new electricity,” said Scroggie. “Just as electricity powered the industrial age, sovereign AI infrastructure will power the next one.” M4 is expected to support thousands of high-value jobs across AI, digital infrastructure, defence technology and advanced research. The campus will be a national platform for secure cloud, sovereign AI, and mission-critical digital workloads — enabling Australia to grow its AI economy. “Digital infrastructure is economic infrastructure,” said Scroggie. “AI factories are a new class of infrastructure, purpose-built for the industrial-scale production of tokens. M4 is a generational investment in capability, resilience, and sovereign leadership — the infrastructure that will underpin Australia’s economic competitiveness in the fourth industrial revolution.” M4 will anchor the Fishermans Bend Innovation Precinct — a nationally strategic hub for advanced manufacturing, aerospace, sovereign defence, and deep tech. NEXTDC is proud to be working with: RMIT University, leading innovation in energy, the built environment, and sustainability National defence partners to protect critical systems and infrastructure The University of Melbourne on research-led collaboration and precinct development AI and quantum researchers, commercialising frontier technologies into national capability Precinct-wide infrastructure programs, ensuring energy resilience, sustainability, and cross-sector innovation “Precincts matter. They create the gravitational pull for investment, innovation, and talent,” said Scroggie. “By anchoring M4 at Fishermans Bend, we’re activating a nationally integrated ecosystem for industrial AI, defence, research, and deep tech. No one builds the future alone. M4 will be the convergence point for partners shaping Australia’s AI era — from NVIDIA’s global leadership to our top-tier universities, to defence leaders building sovereign capability. This is where intelligence infrastructure, collaboration, and execution meet.” For Editorial Inquiries Contact: Editor Kym Bergmann at [email protected] For Advertising Inquiries Contact: Group Sales Director Simon Hadfield at [email protected]