Plenary Sessions
The Australia data centre market size was valued at USD 4.5 Billion in 2024 and it is expected to reach USD 7.8 Billion by 2033, exhibiting a CAGR of 5.7% from 2025-2033. The Australia data centre market share is expanding, driven by rising cloud and AI adoption, increasing digital transformation and strong demand for edge computing. Expanding investments from global players, renewable energy integration, and government initiatives for data localization are shaping the industry.
On 23rd April 2026, The Melbourne Cloud & Datacentre Convention will bring the entire ecosystem together under one roof - uniting cloud providers, data centre operators, enterprise IT, AI innovators, sustainability leaders, policymakers and infrastructure experts. Running in parallel, a dedicated full-day AI & Cloud track will dive deep into real-world adoption strategies, cost optimization, compliance and scaling AI from pilot to production.
Delegates will gain exclusive insights into global and regional trends shaping cloud, data centres and AI- while also addressing Melbourne's unique opportunities and challenges. Expect interesting keynotes, panel debates, fireside chats and case studies covering topics such as AI, cloud computing, sustainability, cybersecurity and data centre construction, operations and management.
Melbourne Cloud & Datacentre Convention 2026 is not just a conference - it's a live marketplace of ideas, partnership-building and future-shaping for digital infrastructure in Australia.
Panellists will discuss lessons learned from both greenfield and brownfield projects, share insights into balancing performance , environmental impact, and time-to-market, and examine how Australian facilities are adopting global design standards to local conditions. Attendees will leave with actionable guidance on how to construct data centers that meets the needs of today while remaining adaptable, efficient and sustainable for the future. Key discussion points, include but not limited to:
This session explores the complex relationship between AI workloads, data centre cooling strategies and water consumption, with a specific focus on the Australian context, where water scarcity, climate variability and sustainability targets are already placing pressure on infrastructure design. Attendees will gain insight into how HVAC system selection, cooling architectures and operational strategies can significantly influence both water usage and overall environmental impact. The discussion will examine current and emerging approaches — including air-cooled versus water-cooled systems, hybrid and liquid cooling solutions, heat recovery, free cooling, and advanced controls — and how these technologies can support resilient, low-water data centre designs without compromising performance or uptime.
This panel brings together operators, engineers, integrators and end-users for a candid discussion on the real reasons data centers fail. Moving beyond headline outages, the conversation will examine the silent failure points that develop long before an incident occurs: poor design assumptions, misaligned stakeholders, skills shortages, deferred maintenance, unrealisitic uptime expectations and the growing strain of AI and high-density workloads. Panellists will share hard-learned lessons from projects and operations that did not go to plan – exploring what could have been done differently and how organizations can build failure-resilient infrastructure from the outset. As a closing session, this panel challenges the audience to rethink how success is measured in data center projects – not by speed or scale alone, but by long-term reliability, safety and trust.
Intimate and reflective in format, this fire-side chat session offers an honest look at what it takes to remain operational when assumptions fail – and why resilience is becoming the most valuable currency in Australia’s digital infrastructure future. The discussion will address practical questions facing Melbourne and Australian operators today:
Panellists will explore the unique challenges facing Melbourne and Victoria, such as grid congestion, connection delays, the rapid shift to renewables and the impact of extreme weather events. The conversation will also address the growing tension between AI-driven power density and sustainability goals, and how closer collaboration between data centers, utilities, regulators and technology providers is becoming essential. Key themes covered:
A bold, future-facing conversation to close the day and challenge assumptions about where the industry is heading next. Are hyperscalers and colocation providers naturally converging into a unified AI infrastructure model – or are we heading toward strategic friction over sovereignty, sustainability and scale? Can cloud architectures truly support AI at industrial levels or will infrastructure paradigms emerge?
