State Gives NextDC Green Light for $2bn M4 Data Centre

NextDC has received development approval from the Victorian Government for its M4 technology campus at Fishermans Bend Innovation Precinct in Port Melbourne.

The $2-billion 162MW digital infrastructure campus at 127 Todd Road will occupy the former Westgate Park Printing Complex site, once home to the nation’s largest newspaper presses.

NextDC chief executive and managing director Craig Scroggie confirmed the approval milestone last week, saying “M4 will be a digital infrastructure campus bringing together a hyperscale AI Factory, a sovereign-grade mission-critical operations centre, and a Technology Centre of Excellence to support skills development, research, and industry collaboration”.

The campus will include 50,000sq m of data centre floorspace with direct-to-chip, closed-loop liquid cooling supporting rack densities of 1000kW using recycled non-potable water.

“This isn’t just a data centre. It is critical infrastructure for Australia’s AI future,” Scroggie said.

“Digital infrastructure is economic infrastructure. AI factories are a new class of industrial asset, purpose-built for sovereign capability, resilience, and long-term competitiveness.

“M4 has been designed to meet the five critical imperatives for Australia’s AI future—speed, scale, sovereign capability, sustainability and security.

“Precincts matter. They create the gravitational pull for investment, innovation and talent.

“By anchoring M4 at Fishermans Bend, we’re activating a nationally integrated ecosystem for industrial AI, defence, research and deep tech.”

Minister for Industry and Innovation Harriet Shing said the “investment by NextDC is another clear signal to the world that Fishermans Bend is a key industry and market centre for growth and in-demand industries, which in turn is driving jobs and economic growth for Victoria”.

The campus will support employment across digital infrastructure operations, defence technology, advanced manufacturing and research sectors.

▲ The former site of News Corp’s printing complex will house industrial AI, defence and deep tech development.

NextDC acquired the Port Melbourne land in 2023, with plans made public in January 2025.

The company currently operates three data centres in Melbourne: the 15MW M1 facility in Port Melbourne launched in 2012, the 60MW M2 site operational since 2017 and the 150MW M3 campus, which commenced operations in 2022.

Kapitol Group delivered both M2 and M3 as construction partner and has an ongoing relationship with NextDC across other Melbourne facilities.

Recent company activity includes a December 2025 memorandum of understanding with OpenAI to develop a 550MW hyperscale AI campus at the S7 site in Eastern Creek, Western Sydney, and a November agreement with Sharon AI for 50MW of capacity expansion.

Melbourne’s total data centre supply nearly tripled to 4.7GW in the second quarter of 2025 as land and power limitations drive development south from Sydney, according to Knight Frank.

The Victorian capital now hosts dedicated cloud regions from AWS, Microsoft, Google and Oracle, with 95 per cent of co-location take-up driven by artificial intelligence workloads.

Broader investment in Australian data centre infrastructure includes AWS’s $13-billion commitment to local projects, Microsoft’s $5-billion development program and CDC’s approved $1.4-billion Western Sydney facility.

NextDC operates or is developing 20 data centres across Australia including facilities in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Port Hedland, Canberra, Adelaide, the Sunshine Coast and Darwin.