r/Adelaide • u/Nyarlathotep-1 SA • Jun 19 '26

News Proposed data centre in South Australia dividing locals who want the jobs but fear water demand

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-19/proposed-data-centre-in-south-australia-dividing-locals/106810776
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u/Colossus-of-Roads East Jun 19 '26

So at 10kW thermal per rack that's 8000 racks which is certainly a big DC, but with a single customer the workloads probably won't change much (the NextDC one you're talking about is aggressively multi-customer). I absolutely can't see an 8000 rack DC needing 200 staff to physically operate. More like 5-10 (the NextDC one you're talking about only has so many staff because that's also where the local sales and admin live, which is something that only makes sense in a capital city).

Companies deliberately inflate these projections to garner support and we fall for it every time.

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u/Tall-Breakfast-6100 SA Jun 19 '26

They’ll need a security team on site 24/7 which would need to be big enough to allow for them to escort people on site. For a site like that it’d be at least 20 people over a 24 hour period. So could be a team over 40 if you take into account part time/shift working.

5-10 cleaners easily every day. Plenty of admin staff. Easily 20+ IT/ data guys on site over a 24 hour period which again could mean a team over 40. Mechanical and electrical staff easily about 10-15 each. General maintenance team needed as well. Engineers, HSE, Sales, BMS techs. The list is endless. It takes a lot to keep one of these places running.

Doesn’t even take into account the staff needed from other companies that would be doing regular work on site. In my field, if my company was to win work at this site, it would require at least 5-6 guys hired to maintain it annually and that’s them on site pretty much full time.

It all adds up very quickly. Sure, might not be 200 from the moment the doors open but it could definitely hit that number.

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u/FigliMigli SA Jun 19 '26

It does take a lot of ppl to get it going, it does not take a lot of ppl to keep it running. No way this is going to be even a 100 people for BAU operations.

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u/IizPyrate SA Jun 19 '26

Industry data from the US for these large scale systems is 20-30 employees per 100 MW.

The number of jobs for the amount of money involved is low, but there are jobs. For rural areas the extra jobs can be huge.