Datagrid announced yesterday a plan to construct the facility near Makarewa, taking advantage of Southland's cool climate, which would make the cloud-computing venture more economic because it would save on cooling overheads.
Two sub-sea cables would also be laid - one to Sydney and Melbourne and the other to Mangawhai Heads, north of Auckland, Stuff reported.
Datagrid is headed by Hawaiki Cable founder Remi Galasso and Callplus Ltd founder Malcolm Dick.
They would have support from Meridian Energy, which could provide power from the Manapouri hydro power scheme.
Stuff reported that at least one of the tech giants from the United States would need to sign up as an anchor tenant.
Mr Dick said companies such as Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon were committed to powering as many of their data centres as possible from renewable energy.
Globally, the demand for data centres is growing.
“Until now, the lack of international connectivity into New Zealand has been a limiting factor for establishing data centres, but with the arrival of the Hawaiki Cable in 2018, that barrier can finally be lifted,” Mr Dick said.
Initially, the facility across 25,000 square metres would use 60 megawatts of power.
If it is scaled up to 100 megawatts, it could consume as much power as a town of 80,000 people.
The project could pick up the slack from electricity consumed by the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter, which could close by the end of next year, although smelter owner Rio Tinto has continued discussions with the Government about keeping it open for longer.
Meridian Energy generation and natural resources general manager Guy Waipara said a low-emissions data centre was an opportunity for Southland to create long-term economic benefits from renewable energy.
“This project complements the power which will be available from the Manapouri station after the exit of New Zealand Aluminium Smelters at Tiwai, and it’s great that the demand for it will remain in Southland,” Mr Waipara said.
The centre would be New Zealand's first "hyperscale" data centre, defined as a facility of at least 1000 sq m and with the ability to scale up in response to increasing demand.
Mr Galasso said it would support New Zealand's digital economy.
“The only hyperscale data centre currently servicing New Zealand is based in Australia, but Southland’s climate makes it 15% cheaper to power a data centre of this size compared with Australia," he said.
Mr Galasso said New Zealand's isolation was in some ways an advantage.
Many companies were looking to locate their data away from larger centres, which were at greater risk of disruptive events, he said.
The centre could service a market of about 20 million people from New Zealand and the Australian states of Victoria, New South Wales and parts of Queensland.
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While green lunatics at DCC make crusades against cars and solve non-issues at ridiculous cost, Invercargill is actually building sustainable post-industrial economy.
If it keeps going that way then both cities will inevitably swap the titles of "a*** of the world" and (currently self-proclaimed) "center of digital excellence".