Fresh from signing a new deal with international tech giant Microsoft, IT storage firm Canberra Data Centres has begun construction of a second massive Fyshwick facility.
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Already providing data services to more than 40 federal government agencies and the ACT government, the firm broke ground on a new 20 megawatt building as part of plans to secure a bigger share of public service demand for computing and cloud services.
Launched by ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr, the firm said the project took its investment in Canberra to more than $500 million in 10 years.
Costing $150 million, the new project will create 100 jobs during construction.
Earlier this month, the firm and Microsoft announced the creation of two new regions for highly-secured government data, set to provide "hyperscale" cloud services for the first time in the ACT.
The deal will see a growing number of departments and agencies migrate their data to systems secure enough to handle APS unclassified and protected records.
Canberra Data Centres already has three facilities in Hume, capable of delivering 21 megawatts of capacity, and one in Fyshwick with 18 megawatt capacity.
The new Fyshwick 2 development will be the firm's largest facility to date.
It is designed to handle government data classifications up to the top secret level, and will also offer on-site top secret office space.
The building is cooled through a closed loop water system and power supply is secured using two grid connections and two generator farms.
The electricity infrastructure is designed to ensure it remains active in black outs or natural disasters and is capable of sending power back to the grid in times of crisis.
"Government estimates that its data holdings will be 100 fold larger in the next decade than they are today," chief executive Greg Boorer said.
"The addition of Fyshwick 2 – slated to come on stream in 2018 – will ensure enough capacity for two to three years' growth in the market we operate in, both meeting the needs of our direct clients, and also those government agencies and departments that will use Microsoft Azure delivered out of our data centres."
Mr Barr welcomed the firm's latest investment as "city building investment of the utmost importance and quality".
"This demonstrates to the world that Canberra is a hub for innovation in cloud technology and services in a market that is becoming increasingly crucial for business, for individuals and for governments around the world," he said.
The company is majority Australian owned, including a 48 per cent share held by the federal government's Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation.
