OpenAI and NextDC Forge Partnership to Develop A$7 Billion AI Data Center in Sydney
December 4, 2025
In a significant move to bolster sovereign artificial intelligence infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific region, Australian data center operator NextDC Ltd. has entered a strategic partnership with leading AI research company OpenAI. The collaboration, formalized through a memorandum of understanding, signals a major commitment to building the high-performance computing backbone required for the next wave of AI innovation.
According to a statement released by the Sydney-listed NextDC, the two companies will jointly plan, develop, and operate a next-generation hyperscale AI campus at NextDC's S7 site in Eastern Creek, Sydney. Located approximately 45 kilometers west of the city center, the facility is designed to house a large-scale GPU supercluster dedicated to advanced AI workloads. The announcement had an immediate positive impact on the market, with NextDC's shares surging as much as 11% in early trading following the news.
While NextDC declined to provide further specifics, the Australian Financial Review reported that the project carries an estimated value of A$7 billion (approximately US$4.6 billion). The data center's substantial capacity is intended to serve OpenAI's clientele in the region, which reportedly includes major Australian corporations such as Commonwealth Bank, Wesfarmers, Canva, and Virgin Australia.
The partnership underscores the critical and growing demand for specialized, high-power data centers capable of training and running large language models and other complex AI systems. For Australia, the project represents a key step in developing local, sovereign infrastructure to reduce reliance on overseas computing resources and to foster domestic AI expertise. For the global AI industry, alliances of this scale between AI pioneers and established data center operators are becoming essential to support the exponential growth in computational requirements, setting a precedent for future infrastructure development worldwide.
Source: yahoo
