CDC Refiles Plans for 1.4GW Data Center Campus at Kemps Creek in Sydney, Australia

CDC Data Centres has significantly expanded its development ambitions in Western Sydney, filing an updated State Environmental Assessment Report (SEARS) application with the New South Wales government for a sprawling new campus at Kemps Creek. The revised application replaces an earlier August filing that envisioned a single four-story building, instead outlining a full-scale campus of six two-story buildings designated KC1 through KC6, together totaling 1.4GW of capacity, alongside an on-site substation. The project now spans 117.5 hectares at 859-901 Mamre Road, up from the 88.4 hectares at 871-901 Mamre Road covered in the original submission.

The move underscores the intensifying race to secure land, power, and planning approvals in one of the Asia-Pacific region's most supply-constrained data center markets. Sydney has emerged as a critical hub for hyperscale and enterprise demand, and the ability to lock in large-scale capacity ahead of competitors has become a strategic priority for developers. CDC's decision to consolidate what was originally intended as a staged, multi-filing expansion into a single comprehensive application reflects both the urgency of the market and the company's confidence in the site's feasibility.

Under the updated plans, the first three buildings will collectively offer 168MW across five data halls, while building four will deliver 144MW across four halls. Building five is designed for 120MW across three data halls, and building six will provide 240MW across seven halls. The original August application, which proposed 144MW across 34,000 square meters (365,970 square feet), was positioned as the first stage of a wider campus to be expanded through subsequent filings. The new application now represents the entire campus under a single submission.

CDC, founded in 2007 and backed by investment firm Infratil, has nearly 20 sites in operation and development across Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, and Auckland, New Zealand. The company currently has more than 600MW of data center capacity in operation and development across those markets, including 70MW in New Zealand, and its future development pipeline now totals a further 1.6GW through 2034. In Sydney, CDC operates two campuses: Eastern Creek and Marsden Park. Eastern Creek has four live buildings—EC1 at 7MW, EC2 at 20MW, EC3 at 42MW, and EC4 at 54MW—with construction underway on EC5 and EC6, which could together exceed 100MW. Marsden Park, where ground was broken in late 2024, is still in development but could offer more than 504MW of capacity with potential to scale to around 1GW.

The Kemps Creek filing arrives as Australia's data center sector faces mounting pressure to bring new capacity online quickly, driven by cloud adoption, artificial intelligence workloads, and digital transformation across the economy. The scale of CDC's revised proposal—1.4GW on a single campus—places it among the largest data center developments ever proposed in the country and signals that developers are increasingly willing to commit to gigawatt-scale projects despite challenges around grid connectivity and construction timelines. For CDC, the successful approval and delivery of Kemps Creek would further cement its position as one of the dominant data center operators in the Australasian market.