Australian ASX 100-listed data centre operator uses Vertiv prefabricated modular infrastructure to speed Port Hedland facility build time and strengthen data centre performance in the Pilbara region.
Vertiv has helped NEXTDC unlock new digital opportunities for Australia’s Pilbara region, delivering power and cooling infrastructure to its Port Hedland data centre.
The new deployment supports the region’s need for robust data centre support to allow local government and industry to continue digitalization growth and the adoption of AI.
NEXTDC operates 16 data centre facilities throughout Australia with another five sites currently in the planning and development stages.
PH1 Port Hedland is NEXTDC’s Port Hedland data centre, located in the remote Pilbara region of Western Australia, which services the port operations of local mining, oil and gas and Federal Government sectors. Within the facility, Vertiv’s integrated modular data centre solutions operate close to the region’s Vocus telecommunications fibre network, helping to make cloud-based services—including AI and machine learning—available to NEXTDC’s PH1 Port Hedland customers.
Adam Gardner, Head of Product, NEXTDC, said:
“NEXTDC’s PH1 empowers the region’s businesses and allows them to innovate and optimise like never before. Vertiv’s strength in Edge data centre builds – particularly in far-flung locations like Port Hedland -meant they were an ideal partner for NEXTDC’s in-house expertise. The Vertiv prefabricated infrastructure solution at PH1 optimised build time and was a great fit to service the region’s operational, safety, and productivity needs.”
Vertiv designed, procured, and implemented a complete prefabricated modular, rugged data centre for Stage 1 of the facility’s total capacity. The prefabricated approach allowed NEXTDC to overcome logistical issues because of the area’s remoteness, using capital city-built pre-engineered components and on-site standardised construction processes to reduce remote assembly costs and speed time to deployment. As a scalable, modular solution, the Vertiv deployment can be rapidly expanded to support additional growth. Meanwhile, the solution’s ruggedised design is tailored to withstand the Pilbara desert’s harsh environmental conditions.
The modular solution is Tier III Uptime Institute-certified and uses refrigerant-based air cooling. It also promotes scalability, should NEXTDC introduce increasingly popular alternative liquid cooling methods. Other features include a high-efficiency UPS system, which supports the environment’s high-density power requirements, and lithium-ion batteries for longer-lasting power.
The enablement of AI-driven, real-time data processing will play an even more prominent role amid NEXTDC’s second edge data centre build in the Pilbara region. NEXTDC’s NE1 Newman facility also leveraged the strong partnership between Vertiv and NEXTDC. Located 600km from Port Hedland and near several mines, the NE1 facility is almost identical to the PH1 facility with additional Stage 1 capacity.
Tony Gaunt, Vice President of Asia, Vertiv, said:
“NEXTDC is bringing metro-level compute modular data centres to geographically dispersed and previously isolated locations.
“Together, we’re making access to the major cloud providers the new status quo for Australia’s most prominent and founding industries and allowing local businesses to capitalise on AI technologies with high-speed connectivity.”
