Along a battered road in Melbourne’s west, turnouts are carved into dirt between hundreds of hectares of open fields and empty paddocks.
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turnouts → carve → fields
Victoria University rises out of the landscape.
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University → rise → landscape
The institution is behind the state’s first data centre academy, which offers courses for those who want to work in the burgeoning sector.
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who → offer → sector
The centres dwarf local neighbourhoods, and their annoying humming and hungry demands for the state’s power and water make them plenty of enemies.
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them → dwarf → enemies
But some locals are asking a radical question: what if data centres worked for us?
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centres → ask → us
Instead of banning them, what if they provided their neighbours with the fastest internet speeds in Australia?
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they → ban → Australia
The West of Melbourne Economic Development Alliance (WoMEDA) has mapped about 40 data centres in the west, including 14 operational or expanding facilities, 11 under construction and seven granted approvals (several more were excluded from the count because their prospects are too uncertain).
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prospects → map → count
With more on the way, developers should extend their fibre optic cabling beyond data centres and into “commuter suburbs”, transforming them into high-tech precincts with the equivalent of the fastest data speeds in Australia, the alliance said.
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alliance → extend → Australia
“Because a major data centre cluster exists in and around Truganina, having direct fibre run through to Werribee and East Werribee would eliminate long-distance routing,” the alliance of local public and private sector leaders said.
“Local businesses would experience sub-millisecond round-trip response times – making local processing feel instantaneous compared to standard connections.
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processing → exist → connections
“The result of building this infrastructure would be to elevate this outer-western suburb to 100 per cent parity with Australia’s top tier financial and technology districts, while giving them an unparalleled local latency advantage due to their proximity to the west’s data centre cluster.”
WoMEDA board member Kelvyn Lavelle is standing in the front of Victoria University, gesturing to the great expanses of flat land around him.
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Lavelle → build → him
The land’s affordability, nearby water recycling facilities and the resident university’s data centre academy (which opened earlier this year at its Footscray campus) are the west’s biggest drawcards for data centres.
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which → open → centres
‘[It] gives businesses a choice whether they want to be located in the CBD or Werribee.’WoMEDA board member Kelvyn Lavelle
The data centre sector is forecast to double its workforce by 2030, Victoria University’s John Burgess says.
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Burgess → give → 2030
“The academy was established to address a significant gap in the market,” said Burgess, head of the university’s Microsoft data centre academy program.
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Burgess → establish → program
“While demand for skilled workers is growing rapidly, there is currently no dedicated nationally accredited training pathway for many operational roles within data centres.”
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demand → grow → centres
Lavelle says the arrival of data centres in the area is serendipitous, coinciding with an influx of advanced manufacturing, advanced logistics businesses, food and agribusinesses, and emerging health and research investment in the west.
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arrival → say → west
“You don’t need to look any further than, say, East Werribee, because it’s large enough and sufficiently undeveloped enough to mean the digital infrastructure, research institutions, advanced industry and employment precincts can really benefit from being designed around access to high-speed optic fibre without any retrofitting,” Lavelle said.
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Lavelle → need → retrofitting
“[It] gives businesses a choice whether they want to be located in the CBD or … Werribee, which is so beautifully positioned between CBD Melbourne, Geelong, the Surf Coast or other parts of the west.
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which → give → west
The push for data centres to give back more to the community is one in a suite of demands in WoMEDA’s western growth update report, one year on from the alliance’s West of Melbourne Summit, presented with The Age.
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centres → give → Age
Up the road from the university, on Werribee’s main street of Watton – a long and laid-back neighbourhood strip of diverse shops, cafes and restaurants – businesses are overwhelmingly in favour of the proposal for data centres to pay their way with better internet for the community.
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centres → lay → community
Staff at Aussizz Migration Agents and Education Consultants are deep in conversation with clients when The Age visits on a Tuesday afternoon, and operations manager Priti Patel emerges into the foyer after a few minutes.
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Patel → visit → minutes
“Obviously, it is a good idea because the internet gets faster,” Patel said.
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Patel → get → ?
“We are an internet-based business
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We → base → ?
“If we’re making networks stronger, that would be great.”
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that → make → ?
At K-Leaf Dispensary, a few doors up, pharmacist Zheming Zhao agreed.
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Zhao → agree → Dispensary
“What they said is dead spot on,” he said.
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he → say → What
“If the data centres move in and can build infrastructure for Werribee, that’s a positive for the community.”
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that → move → community
Barrister to Barista cafe manager Vishal Sharma said crime was up in Werribee, while business investment was down – so anything that improved the local economy would be a good thing.
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that → say → economy
“Japan already launched 6G, and we are still far behind for internet,” Sharma said.
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Sharma → launch → internet
“If we’re getting an upgrade, I think that’s good for everyone.”
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that → get → everyone
But not everyone is convinced.
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everyone → convince → ?
Local Greg asked for his surname not to be published, afraid his views would stir controversy.
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views → ask → controversy
“I’m not sure if that’s going to sway any opinions,” Greg said.
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Greg → ’m → opinions
“They’re thinking that everyone has a price and this is going to win people over.”
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this → think → people
If the proposal went ahead, the people of Melbourne’s west would have better internet, Greg said.
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Greg → go → internet
Earlier this month, Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny laid out Victorian Labor’s expectations for data centres, including that they give a local investment guarantee “above and beyond the regulatory and compliance expectations” to deliver a proportionate, enduring and measurable local impact.
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they → lay → impact
“In Victoria, we set the rules – data centres must power themselves, be built away from homes and pay their way,” a Labor spokesman said.
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spokesman → set → way
An opposition spokesman said that under a Liberal and Nationals government, data centres would not be built in residential areas, next to residential areas or in the green wedge.
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centres → say → wedge
However, they will be “an important part of Victoria’s future”, the spokesman said.
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spokesman → say → future
“They will be built in designated data centre precincts that are appropriately distanced from where people live,” he said.
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he → build → precincts
A source close to NextDC, Australia’s largest listed data centre developer, said the company hadn’t signed on to the idea of extending fibre optic cabling to the suburbs, but it was reviewing its process for community engagement.
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it → say → engagement
The Aporia
