$2.7 million Leading Edge Data Centre proposed for Turvey Park promises internet boost

A development application submitted to Wagga City Council in August has proposed a new data centre to be constructed on the former Charles Sturt University South Campus, off Bourke Street.

The lot in question is next door to the Wagga Veterinary Hospital, and sits opposite the Wagga Showground, with a proposed aged care facility currently being constructed to the south of the building.

The applicants are telecommunications firm Leading Edge Data Centre who are developing a network of regional data centres across the country.

CEO Chris Thorpe said the project will speed up internet and provide a platform for more providers and services to operate in Wagga.

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"The whole concept of what we're doing is giving the ability for that compute capability or that physical cloud environment to be located very close to where the user is or very close to where the data is being generated," Mr Thorpe said.

"Every keystroke travels a shorter distance so it's going to be faster, cheaper and a lot more efficient."

Wagga is one of several regional data centres being constructed by the company across NSW, Queensland and Victoria with sites already running in Tamworth and Newcastle.

"We're creating a world class meshed highly-connected data centre network across regional NSW, Victoria and Queensland," Mr Thorpe said. "The footprint we're creating encompasses about 80 per cent of the regional population of Australia and this is our initial phase we're pushing out now."

Currently, most major cloud services and data centres are located in Sydney, and a localised centre would cut down transmission time and traffic along the major network.

Wagga-based internet provider Kinetic Networks is planning to sign on with the centre. Director James Howell descried it as an exciting development for the city's communications capability.

"It definitely will speed up latency [and] all those things make a difference," he said.

Latency is the time it takes for data to be transferred from its source to its destination.

"[The data centre] would pretty much reduce the amount of traffic that heads to Sydney from Wagga," Mr Howell said.

He added: "We're excited, I think it has a really interesting approach."

Neighbours have not voiced any major concerns with the development so far.

Director of the neighbouring Wagga Veterinary Hospital Tristan Robinson said their only worry would be business access during the construction period.

"We're supportive of development as long as there is consideration of neighbours in the construction phase when there's heavy machinery coming and going," he said.

The development includes three buildings with solar shields which would operate 24/7 as an unstaffed 'dark site' (unstaffed).

If approved, the site is expected to open as early as 2022.

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