NEXTDC unveils AUD $2 billion AI campus in Melbourne push

NEXTDC has announced the launch of a AUD $2 billion AI factory and technology campus, named M4, at Port Melbourne, anchoring the Fishermans Bend Innovation Precinct.

The new campus is designed to serve as a regional hub for hyperscale AI, defence workloads, and sovereign systems. M4 aims to deliver secure, sustainable, and scalable digital infrastructure to position Australia in the ongoing global competition for AI capability.

Facility details

M4 will be built on the site of the former Westgate Park Printing Complex. The project will include an AI Factory, a Mission Critical Operations Centre (MCX), and a Technology Centre of Excellence. The campus is specifically tailored for high-performance computing (HPC), sovereign AI, advanced manufacturing, and deep technology workloads.

"This isn't just a data centre — it's critical infrastructure for Australia's AI future," said Craig Scroggie, CEO and Managing Director NEXTDC.

The AI Factory is engineered to support high-density, liquid-cooled racks capable of exceeding 1,000kW, suitable for AI model training and inference at scale. The MCX will provide a secure environment for defence, government and enterprise operations with constant uptime, housed within Tier IV facilities. The Technology Centre of Excellence will serve as a national hub for AI skills, research and development, and industry collaboration.

Sustainability and infrastructure

Key infrastructure highlights include up to 150MW of power across 50,000m2, on-site solar and microgrid support, integration for recycled wastewater cooling, and software-defined optical fabrics for high-speed data transmission. The facility will also feature district-level waste heat recovery and compliance with government and defence-grade regulations, including PSPF, SCEC, HCF, and DISP standards.

Scroggie outlined the facility's ambitions, stating, "M4 has been designed to meet the five critical imperatives for Australia's AI future — speed, scale, sovereign capability, sustainability, and security."

He elaborated, "Compute is the new electricity. Just as electricity powered the industrial age, sovereign AI infrastructure will power the next one."

Government and industry backing

The Premier of Victoria, The Hon. Jacinta Allan, welcomed the investment, noting its wider significance for the state. "This investment means thousands of jobs, training for the next generation of tech workers, and cements Victoria's reputation as the centre of innovation. We're open for business, and we're backing Victorians every step of the way."

The campus is expected to generate thousands of high-value jobs across sectors such as AI, digital infrastructure, defence technology and advanced research. The national platform is intended to support secure cloud, sovereign AI, and mission-critical digital workloads within Australia.

The Hon. Danny Pearson MP, Victorian Minister for Economic Growth and Jobs; Minister for Finance, commented, "This project will create high-skilled jobs and lay the groundwork to support future developments in AI, advanced manufacturing and defence. We are working hard to attract and grow these opportunities, which are creating a thriving and globally competitive tech sector, right here in Victoria."

Scroggie added, "Digital infrastructure is economic infrastructure. AI factories are a new class of infrastructure, purpose-built for the industrial-scale production of tokens. M4 is a generational investment in capability, resilience, and sovereign leadership — the infrastructure that will underpin Australia's economic competitiveness in the fourth industrial revolution."

Precinct partnerships

M4 will anchor the Fishermans Bend Innovation Precinct, described as a nationally strategic hub for industries including advanced manufacturing, aerospace, sovereign defence and deep technology. NEXTDC will collaborate with research and innovation bodies such as RMIT University and the University of Melbourne, alongside commercial and defence sector partners.

Scroggie stated, "Precincts matter. They create the gravitational pull for investment, innovation, and talent. By anchoring M4 at Fishermans Bend, we're activating a nationally integrated ecosystem for industrial AI, defence, research, and deep tech."

He continued, "No one builds the future alone. M4 will be the convergence point for partners shaping Australia's AI era — from NVIDIA's global leadership to our top-tier universities, to defence leaders building sovereign capability. This is where intelligence infrastructure, collaboration, and execution meet."

Minister for Development Victoria and Precincts, The Hon. Harriet Shing MP, added, "This major investment by NEXTDC is another clear signal to the world that Fishermans Bend is a key industry and market centre for growth and in demand industries, which in turn is driving jobs and economic growth for Victoria."

Industry and academic perspectives

Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research & Innovation and Vice President, Distinguished Professor Calum Drummond AO of RMIT University, said, "We support the Victorian Government and NEXTDC's initiative in advancing The Fisherman's Bend Innovation Precinct as a future Technology Campus for the development of key technologies needed to ensure Australian companies and knowledge-exchange institutions, including universities, keep pace with the rapid innovations in AI and emerging technologies more broadly."

Professor Gary Rosengarten, Director at RMIT's Sustainable Technologies and System Enabling Impact Platform, commented, "This investment positions Australia at the forefront of sustainable innovation—leveraging our world-class research in energy systems, the built environment, and sustainability to create a resilient, net-zero data centre precinct that seamlessly integrates next-generation computing, AI, and secure large-scale data storage."

Professor Regina Crameri, Victorian Defence Industry Advocate, said, "NEXTDC's role as an anchor tenant in Fishermans Bend will bring cutting-edge data centre infrastructure to Victoria, strengthening the state's defence and intelligence industry and accelerating critical skills in technology and security. This next-generation facility will serve as a national foundation for innovation, resilience, and technological capability in an increasingly digital world."

Amanda Holt, CEO of SYPAQ, remarked, "The initiative the Victorian Government and NEXTDC are spearheading is much needed to support the development of critical and advanced technology businesses in Melbourne and surrounds. We look forward to becoming an active member of the Fishermans Bend Innovation Precinct and leveraging its growth to expand our business in Victoria."

Adam Evans, Co-founder of Anywise, stated, "The establishment of the Fishermans Bend Innovation Precinct bodes well for business looking to expand their footprint in Victoria. It will deliver the sort of cloud and A.I. infrastructure that businesses like ours are looking to leverage. A.I. and high-level compute capability will increasingly become part of the products and service life cycle for many in the area and add scale and agility to sectors like Defence and other industries."

Stu Scotis, Agentic AI Leader at Deloitte Consulting, commented, "At Deloitte, we believe Australia has a generational opportunity to lead on Sovereign AI. AI could be Australia's next great export industry, one that could underpin our continued economic prosperity in the century ahead. But to get it right, we have to start with the basics: The power, the people, and the infrastructure. We believe that investments in facilities like this will create opportunities for Australian organisations, government departments and agencies to build the AI platforms and solutions critical to our sovereign AI capabilities."

Mr Mike Johnson, CEO of the Australian Industry and Defence Network, said, "AIDN is looking forward to working with Defence Industry and Government to help realise the future potential of the Fishermans Bend Innovation Precinct."

Andrew Leece, Co-Founder & COO of Sharon AI, remarked, "Building on our existing GPU deployments at NEXTDC's Tier IV M3 (Footscray) campus, we look forward to collaborating with NEXTDC at the Fishermans Bend Innovation Precinct as part of the first dedicated 'AI precinct' in Australia. This infrastructure is critical in enabling government, researchers and enterprise with unparalleled access to sovereign AI capability."

Dr Michael Harvey, Director of New Ventures at Quantum Australia, said, "This landmark investment in sovereign digital infrastructure reinforces Australia's ambition to lead in emerging technologies. As quantum computing develops, access to high performance computing, secure data centres, and colocation facilities of this calibre will be critical to our national capabilities. Quantum technologies also have a key role to play in securing the data infrastructure of the future, ensuring that Australia's information and systems remain protected. While this is primarily an investment in AI, it opens new possibilities for collaboration across AI, quantum, and advanced computing, especially as companies like NVIDIA increasingly engage with Australia's quantum sector."

Jane Fitzpatrick, CEO of the Australian National Fabrication Facility, commented, "As a national leader in research infrastructure, the Australian National Fabrication Facility has seen first-hand what can be achieved when core capabilities are accessible to innovative people. The ROI from investment that supports research, development and translation efforts is undeniable and I hope that this announcement is the first of many that will answer the calls of industry for shared facilities that underpin new technologies and economic growth."