AirTrunk proposes air-cooled data centre campus at Mickleham in Melbourne's north

AirTrunk set out plans on 9 November 2026 for a data centre campus on a site at 45 Donnybrook Road, Mickleham, in Melbourne's north; the project still needs planning and environmental approval.

The company says the campus is designed to be cooled by air, so in normal running it would take no water from the community supply for cooling. It says the site sits over 400 metres from the closest house, on land zoned for industrial and employment use, and that the buildings are arranged to hide equipment and keep noise from carrying past the boundary.

On power, AirTrunk says it will pay for linking the campus to Victoria's transmission grid. Its project page says this means funding the site's own connection works and a new Donnybrook terminal station, and paying network charges on an ongoing basis.

AirTrunk is holding drop-in sessions on 17 and 18 November at the Mickleham North Community Centre and a webinar on 23 November, to gather views on what the project could offer locals, its community benefits and the effects of building it.

Separately, documents for the project's assessment under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 can be viewed and commented on from 4 to 18 November 2026, under reference EPBC 2023/09568. The notice says the project could affect threatened species and ecological communities protected by the Act, naming the Matted Flax-lily, a natural temperate grassland community of the Victorian Volcanic Plain and a type of seasonal freshwater wetland.

AirTrunk expects the campus to sustain over 1,000 local jobs on an ongoing basis, with further work for local firms and suppliers while it is built, and proposes $26.5 million for the area if approvals are granted.