IREN's Australian AI Hub
IREN Inks Deal for 800MW AI Data Center in South Australia, Eyeing Asia-Pacific Compute Demand
IREN has signed a transmission connection agreement for a planned 800-megawatt data center campus in Bundey, South Australia—its first disclosed data center project in the country. The deal secures high-voltage access via four 330kV feeder exits that IREN says can support up to 800MW without immediate network upgrades, with energization expected to begin in 2028 subject to regulatory approvals. The company expects more than 500 construction roles, including around 200 permanent positions, as it pursues early works and procurement alongside permitting. IREN says the campus will be tied to submarine fiber connectivity serving major Asia-Pacific demand centers and is designed to support regional and global AI computing demand. South Australia’s goal of 100% net renewable energy by 2027 is central to IREN’s pitch that the project will run on cleaner electricity, and the announcement boosted its shares in pre-market trading. The plan adds to the broader race among data-center builders to lock in grid capacity, land, and power for AI workloads in capacity-constrained markets.
Key Points
IREN said the planned Bundey campus is about 78 miles (roughly 126 km) northeast of Adelaide—about as specific a siting detail as the announcement provides—and it is IREN’s first disclosed data-center development in Australia.
IREN framed the 800MW scale as making the Bundey project “one of the largest announced data center campuses in the Asia-Pacific region,” linking the capacity to rising AI compute demand.
Daniel Roberts, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of IREN, directly tied the project to state support and infrastructure prerequisites, saying: “South Australia offers what AI infrastructure at scale requires: abundant clean energy, the connectivity to serve the APAC region, and a State Government that understands the opportunity and is acting on it.”
South Australia Premier Peter Malinauskas said the project represents “significant investment” in the state, with potential to create construction jobs and strengthen South Australia’s position as a technology hub for the Asia-Pacific region.
IREN reiterated its business model in the context of the announcement, describing itself as a “vertically integrated AI Cloud provider” that delivers “large-scale data centers and GPU clusters for AI training and inference,” with operations across North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
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