Australia’s Goodman Opens 400MW Hong Kong Data Centre Campus

Australian industrial specialist Goodman Group on Wednesday opened a data centre complex in Hong Kong’s New Territories with up to 400 megawatts in overall power capacity, creating one of the city’s largest digital infrastructure facilities.

The bit barn is part of Goodman Tsuen Wan West precinct, a 1.6 million square foot (148,645 square metre) complex spanning four buildings, with the first two facilities completed and fully leased to a pair of major global firms.

The tech complex opened its doors eight years after Goodman acquired a disused manufacturing facility that had once housed local fabric manufacturer and vendor, Central Textiles in 2014 for HK$1 billion (then $129 million), and then began redeveloping the site.

“Goodman Tsuen Wan West is the latest showcase of our commitment to urban regeneration, while meeting the surging demand both locally and regionally for high-tier data centres, technology infrastructure and emissions reduction objectives,” said Kristoffer Harvey, Goodman Group chief executive officer for Greater China.

2024 Completion Eyed

While construction on the remaining two buildings will only be finished in 2024, Goodman said the entire campus has already been 87 percent committed to “major global data centre and technology” companies. A company representative declined to name its tenants due to confidentiality.

To meet the needs of its energy-hungry occupiers, each structure is equipped with its own independent high-voltage power supply to accommodate a wide range of uses including manufacturing, telecommunications or data centre operations.

Goodman worked with government authorities and electricity provider CLP Power  – one of the city’s two main power providers – as well as its global customers, in planning the decade-long redevelopment.

To help reduce the carbon footprint of the project, Goodman Tsuen Wan West is Hong Kong’s first ever development to have offset the embodied emissions from its construction, including recycling demolition materials, the company said, without providing further details of its offset strategies. The facilities are also LEED Gold pre-certified and incorporate rooftop solar.

The $26-billion industrial builder currently owns at least 19 assets across Hong Kong, including four other properties in Tsuen Wan, in the western portion of New Territories.

Nearby projects include its 27-floor Goodman Global Gateway warehouse at 168 Yeung Uk Road as well as the 29-storey Goodman Tsuen Wan Centre industrial facility at 68 Wang Lung Street.

The data centre launch comes one month after Goodman agreed to buy three-quarters of the Chuan Kei Factory building in the neighbouring town of Kwai Chung from the family of Hong Kong’s late “Shop King” Tang Shing Bor.

Growing Data Centre Portfolio

Ranked as the largest industrial property group on the Australian stock exchange, Goodman opened its Hong Kong tech facility less than a year after taking on a pair of Japanese data centre projects.

In a tie-up with Singapore’s ST Telemedia Global Data Centres, Goodman said in October of last year that it will develop two server facilities in Inzai City that could yield up to 60 megawatts of IT load.

The Aussie shed specialist is expanding its tech properties as its Sydney-based rival Logos continues to up its bets on data centre with a set of new hires announced earlier this week.

Also among APAC industrial players moving into data centres is ESR, which announced in July that its inaugural data centre fund had raised more than $1 billion in commitments in its first closing, on its way to a $1.5 billion hard cap.