Bevan Slattery, recognised as one of Australia’s most successful Information Technology and Internet Entrepreneurs, today announced the launch of his latest venture and Australia’s newest carrier and systems integrator neutral national data centre provider NEXTDC.

“I am delighted to announce the launch of NEXTDC and bring to the market my vision of building Australia’s smartest, most secured, scalable and energy efficient data centres”, said Mr Slattery, Founder of NEXTDC.

“We will deliver leading edge data centres that are purpose built facilities with full concrete construction. These data centres will deploy some of the smartest technologies designed to empower our customers and also reduce their carbon footprint. Not to put too fine a point on it, our data centres will be all concrete bunkers, with very smart brains and a green heart. That is our mission”, he said.

Australia and New Zealand data centre industry analysts are continuing to forecast strong demand for specialist data centre capacity with particular interest in carrier and systems integrator neutral, densely powered and yet energy efficient data centres, particularly in markets traditionally considered to be secondary, such as Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Auckland.

However, due to significant upfront capital investment requirement in building data centres, challenges in retro-fitting existing facilities and difficulty in obtaining finance for commercial properties has resulted in a lack of investment or an investment in sub-standard facilities in these markets to date.

“NEXTDC intends to change the landscape of data centre market in Australia by offering high quality and environmental friendly data centres”, Mr Slattery added. NEXTDC has already commenced the acquisition of properties in Melbourne and Brisbane. Each property has been selected for its convenient location, proximity to CBD, access to power and telecommunications services, and most importantly large enough to allow for future expansion of the initial facility to create a data centre campus over time as demand increases. The initial facility in each city is expected to provide at least 2,000sqm of technical space and be able to be expanded to between 5,000sqm and 10,000sqm over the period.

“I believe there has been no better time to invest in premium data centres than now. With the unprecedented growth in internet traffic, data consumption and storage throughout the world combined with the incredible demand for power and cooling, legacy data centres cannot cope with the requirements nor deliver the energy efficiency benefits that a purpose built greenfield data centre can”, Mr Slattery added.

NEXTDC will be able to deliver some of the highest power densities per metre in the Australian data centre market as well as offer flexible dedicated data suites of between 50sqm and 2,000sqm.

Brisbane and Melbourne facilities are expected to be operational in just over twelve months time with initial projects already being fully funded by Mr Slattery. NEXTDC’s product and service offerings will be available to its customers in the next 6-8 weeks.

“I am excited to launch NEXTDC which will revolutionise the Australian data centre market and deliver significant benefits to our customers”, said Mr Slattery. Further details will be made available over the next few weeks at www.nextdc.com.