Data centres push Australia's project pipeline to a record $1.39 trillion, Deloitte says

Australia's pipeline of major projects hit a record $1.39 trillion in the September quarter, and 37 data centre projects worth $141 billion are part of it, Deloitte Access Economics reported in its quarterly Investment Monitor on 5 November 2026. The data centre figure is 36 per cent higher than a year earlier. Across 986 projects, the overall total grew 3.6 per cent in the quarter.

Deloitte said projects under construction are approaching $870 billion in 2027, more than twice the mining boom's peak. It noted that the economy has little room to take on that work while inflation sits above target. Definite investment, covering projects under construction or committed, rose 0.4 per cent to a record $563 billion, and planned investment gained 5.9 per cent to $828 billion.

Sheraan Underwood, the report's lead author and a director at Deloitte Access Economics, said data centres are joining a pipeline that is "already historically large". Finance, property and business services, the category that includes data centres, posted the biggest quarterly rise, up 26.4 per cent to $171 billion. Transport is still the biggest industry at $437 billion, with utilities at $387 billion. Briefs Finance reported that data centres made up most new announcements in the quarter, headed by Queensland's Western Downs Digital Park, where Anthropic finalised a lease in September.

Deloitte said the current cycle differs from the mining boom in where the activity sits. New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland hold 67 per cent of data centre investment in the database, while about 80 per cent of mining-boom spending went to Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory. Underwood said that proximity to major cities puts data centres in direct competition with housing and infrastructure for workers and materials. He described labour as the main pinch point, given that electricians and other trades are already scarce, and said the contest for them will lift costs and raise the risk of projects being delayed or scaled back.

Underwood also argued that the economic gain will fall short of what the headline numbers imply, since much of the technology inside data centres is imported and few staff are needed to operate them. In his view, the building and inflation pressures arrive now, while any productivity dividend may be far off.

Deloitte expects business investment to climb as a share of the economy over the next few years despite slowing growth, though Underwood called the supporting base narrow. He said that beyond data centres, infrastructure and the net zero transition, business confidence has weakened and forward orders sit below their long-run average. Public investment, he said, has peaked: state and territory budgets set aside $280 billion for infrastructure over the four years to 2029-30, which Deloitte put at $9.4 billion less after inflation than a year before.

Briefs Finance reported that the Reserve Bank has lifted interest rates five times this year. It said power is another risk, with coal plants closing and generation, storage and grid spending possibly lagging. It also reported that last month a developer of one of Australia's largest planned data centres hit power supply problems. According to Briefs Finance, Commonwealth Bank of Australia estimates the buildout could reach A$150 billion by 2030.