ЦОД для ИИ за $28 млрд на газе: сингапурский девелопер строит в аутбэке Австралии

A Singapore-based developer has unveiled a plan to build an autonomous data center for artificial intelligence worth about $28 billion deep in the Australian outback — roughly 683 km south of Darwin, in the Northern Territory. According to The Next Web in July 2026, the facility will become one of the largest data centers in the Southern Hemisphere and will be powered not by the electrical grid, but by gas.

What is known about the project

The data center is planned to be located on an operating cattle station in a sparsely populated part of the Northern Territory, beyond the reach of the main power grid. The developer is betting on a local resource that is abundant in the region — natural gas. According to The Next Web, this is one of the largest data centers in the entire Southern Hemisphere.

Key parameters of the project:

• Announced investment scale — about $28 billion
• Location — a cattle station roughly 683 km south of Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
• Developer headquartered in Singapore
• Autonomous (off-grid) power supply — from gas, without connection to the shared grid
• Positioned as one of the largest data centers in the Southern Hemisphere

"The plan relies on a resource that is abundant in the region but beyond the reach of the power grid — gas," is how

The Next Web describes the concept.

Why gas instead of the grid?

The power grid physically does not reach this part of the outback, so connecting a facility of this scale to the shared energy system is impossible. Gas solves the problem: there is enough of it in the region to generate electricity right on site and power tens of thousands of servers without the costly extension of lines over hundreds of kilometers.

The developer's calculation fits a global trend. Training and running modern AI models require enormous amounts of electricity, and the queue to connect new data centers to grids in developed countries is growing faster than the grids themselves. Autonomous generation next to a fuel source is becoming a way to get around this bottleneck — even at the cost of giving up a "green" image.

Where exactly, and what's next

The site was chosen in Australia's Northern Territory — one of the country's most sparsely populated and arid regions, 683 km south of Darwin. Formally, this is the land of an operating cattle station: the combination of cheap land, proximity to gas, and remoteness from cities makes it attractive for energy-intensive infrastructure.

For now, this is the developer's plan, not a facility under construction: the amounts, timelines, and funding sources for a project of this scale still remain to be confirmed. Projects worth tens of billions of dollars go through a long approval process, especially when environmental issues and gas-fired generation are involved.

What this means

Demand for AI compute is pushing the industry into places no one thought of before: if the grid doesn't reach, the data center comes to where cheap energy is. The Australian outback with its gas is becoming a candidate for the role of one of AI's energy pillars — with all the questions about the carbon footprint of such projects.

Frequently asked questions

Where do they plan to build the data center?

At a cattle station in Australia's Northern Territory, roughly 683 km south of Darwin — in a sparsely populated part of the outback beyond the reach of the main power grid.

Why will the data center run on gas instead of the grid?

The power grid physically doesn't reach the site, while gas is abundant in the region. This makes it possible to generate electricity right on site and power the data center autonomously, without running power lines over hundreds of kilometers.