Bitcoin miner-turned-AI-infrastructure provider IREN is returning to its Australian roots with plans for its first data center campus in the country as it looks to capitalize on growing demand for artificial intelligence compute across the Asia-Pacific region.
The company said Wednesday it signed a "transmission connection agreement" for a planned 800-megawatt data center campus in Bundey, South Australia. IREN expects the site to be up and running in 2028, pending regulatory approvals.
The campus will reportedly tap into South Australia's high-voltage transmission network and connect the country to "major regional demand centers including Singapore, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan."
It is IREN's first Australian data center project and comes as tech companies scramble to secure power, land, and connectivity to support growing high-performance compute AI workloads.
"South Australia offers what AI infrastructure at scale requires: abundant clean energy, the connectivity to serve the APAC region, and a State Government that understands the opportunity and is acting on it," co-founder and co-CEO Daniel Roberts said in a statement.
