The Northern Territory’s capital city Darwin, is located within 50 milliseconds to more than 500 million people and offers a secure and stable location for digital, data, technology and telecommunication companies to start-up, relocate or expand their operations to service the local, Australian and Indo Pacific markets.
International connectivity with high speed-networks
New subsea cables from Darwin will provide high speed network capacity to key locations including Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and United State. These connections will provide the best available latency to Singapore from any other Australian capital city, offering speeds 2.4 times faster than from Sydney and 1.2 times faster than from Perth.
Three new international digital connections linking Darwin to the commercial and population centres of South-East Asia and North America have been announced in the past year, including:
- Vocus Darwin-Jakarta-Singapore Cable (DJSC) - the first direct fibre link between Darwin and Singapore. Completed 2023.
- Inligo Network’s Asia Connect Cable-1 (ACC-1) - linking Indonesia, Timor Leste, the Philippines, Guam, Japan and the United States. Operational by 2026.
- BW Digital Hawaiki Nui Cable – connecting Darwin to Singapore, Jakarta, eastern Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and Los Angeles. Darwin to Sydney connecting expected to be ready for service in 2026.
Connectivity to Australian markets
The Territory is connected to the rest of Australia via a network of terrestrial cables. Recently completed and planned upgrades to this trans-Australia connectivity include:
- Terabit Territory - upgrade of Vocus fibre backbone between Darwin, Adelaide and Brisbane to world-class 200 gigabit per second technology, completed in 2021.
- HyperOne (H1) - new fibre cables across Australia and the Northern Territory, capable of carrying over 10,000 terabits per second.
- Inligo Unite Cable system - connects Darwin to Adelaide, through to Melbourne and Canberra; and onto Inligo’s ACC-1 subsea cable.
- Telstra Intercity Fibre Network – new dual fibre connections between Darwin and Adelaide, and through to other capital cities.
Data centres
The Territory’s improving connectivity is attracting data centre operators including:
- NEXTDC D1 - data centre in the Darwin CBD that will deliver up to 8 megawatts of IT load. Operational by 2024.
- DCI DRW01 - secure cloud edge data centre to be constructed in a Darwin business precinct. An initial IT load of 4 megawatts will be operational mid to late 2024, with plans to expand to 10 megawatts.
Proponents with an interest in doing business in the Territory will find an agile Northern Territory Government, willing to work with proponents to ensure all opportunities are fully explored and issues are identified and addressed in a timely manner.
