The weekday briefing on Australian telecommunications, data centres and AI infrastructure.
Today's briefing
Thursday 29 October 2026
AirTrunk has secured A$4.25 billion in green debt from 32 lenders to keep building its SYD3 campus in Western Sydney, due for completion by mid-2028.
Energy minister Chris Bowen has lodged a rule change request with the AEMC that would require qualifying data centres to contract firmed energy supply.
SHAPE Australia also says it won a contract of about $800 million from DigiCo for the next stage of SYD1.
AirTrunk has raised A$4.25 billion in green debt from 32 financial institutions to keep building SYD3 in Western Sydney, due for completion by mid-2028. The loan lifts its committed debt to about A$38.4 billion.
Energy minister Chris Bowen has lodged a rule change request that would force qualifying data centres to secure firmed supply from new generation, storage or demand response. The AEMC received it on 20 October and has not yet started its process.
SHAPE Australia says its backlog has passed $1.5 billion after DigiCo Infrastructure REIT handed it an approximately $800 million contract for the next stage of its SYD1 data centre in Sydney.
Blackstone is assembling an Australian energy platform, with small land and asset purchases so far, to supply power to its data centres, sources told NPM. Governments are meanwhile drafting national standards for large facilities that include self-supplied power.
Telstra is a customer of Microsoft Frontier Company and has built an AI agent that untangles billing and payment mismatches when customers move between old and new platforms. Microsoft says the agent supports more than 272,000 service migrations at 95 per cent-plus accuracy in production.
The Australian Academy of Science told a parliamentary inquiry that Australia risks hosting AI infrastructure without capturing the returns, and proposed a 2.5 per cent levy on AI providers, hyperscalers and data centre operators to fund national computing.
The Digital Transformation Agency has published Whole-of-Government Cloud Computing Guidance covering strategy, security, procurement, cost control and AI-enabled services. It supports agencies applying the Cloud Computing Policy, in effect since 1 July 2026.
Telstra and Ericsson will co-lead a new working group on how vendors' systems exchange information about networks and how much confidence to place in it. Results are due to go to bodies such as TM Forum.
With Google applying to land its Bosun cable at Fannie Bay and Darwin heading for five international systems, a People of Internet analysis says Australia's criminal penalties already rival the UK's proposals and the real gaps are approvals, open access and route diversity.
NTT Docomo has added Australia and New Zealand to docomo Starlink Direct, taking the direct-to-device roaming service to five countries. It works only outdoors where there is no terrestrial mobile or active Wi-Fi connection, and it carries data but not voice.