The A $ 17 million ‘ bunker ’ data centre is a product of a record year for Macquarie , during which the company invested over A $ 100 million into the construction of secure , sovereign Australian data centres in Sydney and Canberra , after pioneering the industry 20 years ago . The IC5 construction alone supported over 400 construction and related industry roles in the ACT .

IC5 expands Macquarie ’ s sovereign data centre footprint in Canberra , providing a fully sovereign ecosystem in terms of supply chain , staff and data access and storage . Alongside Macquarie ’ s adjacent Intellicentre 4 ( IC4 ), the new facility offers further capacity for government cloud

workloads and an additional secure facility to back up data .

The combined 4 MW facilities leverage the latest physical and virtual security and compliance credentials to manage highly classified government cloud workloads . These include being a Tier IV , SCEC Zone 5 ready data centre , supported by over 150 NV1 government-cleared engineers – including in its 24x7x365 support centre – a 25 % increase in cybersecurity engineers since construction commenced in July 2020 .

“ Data and cloud demand has skyrocketed as the pandemic continues to bring forward years ’ worth of IT and Digital Transformation projects ,” said David Hirst , Group Executive , Macquarie Data Centres . “ Ensuring that data remains secure , sovereign and within Australia ’ s borders is vital to protecting our national security and privacy interests – this facility embodies that need in every way .”

The launch follows the on-time and onbudget completion of IC5 in December

2020 despite unprecedented challenges including COVID-19 lockdowns , travel restrictions and record rainfall in Canberra during October . The project also contrasts with the overall decline in data centre infrastructure spend last year , which research has found reduced by 10.4 % in 2020 .

Macquarie worked with Australian construction company , Manteena , on IC5 , leveraging its unique expertise in designing and constructing secure , complex infrastructure for government agencies including the Australian Department of Defence and Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade .

Last year , Macquarie became the first Australian sovereign cloud service provider ( CSP ) certified to work with Defence through the Defence Industry Security Program ( DISP ).

The build involved 4km of underground electrical conduit , 15 tons of copper in the main cables and generators powerful enough to run 400 homes . ◊

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