Melbourne Convention 2025: The Impacts of Digital Growth on Enterprise, Datacenters & Cloud in Victoria
The return of the W.Media Convention to Melbourne on April 3rd 2025 takes place as the city achieves recognition as a growing leader in digital infrastructure. Equinix recently described Melbourne as the fastest growing ‘edge metro’ in the world and analysis from DCByte indicates a substantial forward programme of build which could see capacity across the metro area move over the next few years towards 1 GW.
Our Convention for Melbourne in 2025 will focus on the key factors and requirements that are driving enterprise demand and which will drive growth and direction in future demand for digital infrastructure. The emergence of AI and digital technologies will be considered particularly in terms of the profile of different user profiles and requirements. The decisions made on the basis of ‘sustainability’ will also be discussed and broadened to include the issues of how far corporate brand objectives drive technology decisions and the value of achieving an overall industry identity locally and beyond. Other impact factors from both inside and outside the industry each command their own discussion - hyperscale, legislation, risk and security, connectivity needs.
We will welcome thought leaders, expert speakers and panelists to consider these and other critical issues. The convention will deliver insights, learning, debate and opinion. Keynote presentations, case studies and panel discussions will be supplemented by exhibition halls, tech demonstrations and networking opportunities.
The environmental, social and governance responsibilities which form the basis of ‘sustainability’ are continually evolving in terms of their measurement, management and delivery What are the key learnings from the industry’s history of sustainability so far – what are the successes and achievements, and the areas where improvement may be required? How can sustainability targets be reached across hybrid infrastructure configurations?
This presentation will look at where the Australian market stands in relation to other established markets around the world such as the USA, Japan and Korea. It will examine also the key driving factors for the Australian market and the factors that will change the industry moving forward. What will be the impact of the acceleration of digital technologies in terms of both demand and their operational application?
Cyber threats to telecom and networks systems and infrastructure are continuing to grow in sophistication. A lack of reporting on incidence, causes and impacts in Australia is seen in some quarters as a cause for concern in preparing against future threats. This keynote looks at some of the emerging techniques that have proven useful to telco and data systems in threat mitigation – Steve will look at the role of authoritative data in routing and fraud prevention, and the monetization of number assets as steps that can enhance security in the communications and data ecosystem.
Cooling can be viewed as one of the most intractable challenges in the data centre universe. Accelerating demand and rising densities are adding impetus to the criticality of cooling and heat removal. What does the future for data centre cooling look like in terms of requirements, technological development and deployment practices?
Cloud computing is considered to offer users agility, flexibility and efficiency in the digital economy and this looks set to continue – according to Grand View Research, the worldwide public cloud services market is forecast to grow 14.1% p.a. from 2023 to 2030. Yet cloud is not static; how will the growing deployment of AI and digital technologies be managed in terms of their strong reliance on considerable volumes of data? What role will cloud computing play in this, and how will the forms in which cloud is made available and specific services develop?
How far do data centres follow the policies and guidelines of the companies which own them or are data centres left to pursue their own paths towards sustainability? Do service data centres and cloud providers follow relevant corporate policies or are targets based on the profile of individual facilities and their clients? What role do different sets of national legislation play?
In what ways are the requirements for data centre design, build and operation likely to change over the coming few years? Which requirements will grow stronger and which, if any, will reduce? What will be the impact of the growing demand from AI learning and delivery? And from the increasing role of AI as an operational and planning tool? How will the planning and design process factor in these changes (even those which may be less certain to happen)? How might the Victorian data centre of 2034 and the skills required to work in it be different to today?
Is the community view of data centres still largely ‘unformed’? What evidence do we have for what the wider public outside the data centre and associated industries think? How does the opinion and information provided by media outlets outside the industry shape the view of the industry among different groups? Does this matter – if so, why? If not, why not – should it?
The continuing deployment of digital technologies within data centres is driven usually by the requirement for operational efficiency and performance. What impacts do digital technologies have on the sustainability of data centres? How can different digital systems be deployed to improve sustainability performance? In this context, what will be the role of people, skills development, management systems, and digital strategies in delivering ‘greener’ data centres?
Connectivity is a critical requirement for datacenters and cloud as they act as key enablers of the digital age. Data and services are transmitted to and from (other) data centers, to intermediaries and end-consumers across the world and, in some cases, beyond it. The expectation is of lower latency, faultless reliability and greater speed. As cloud, colocation and hybrid infrastructure continue to diversify services and increase their digital footprint across Australia, how well are each of these options prepared for the demands of an era based increasingly on connectivity?
What do I need to bring for registration on event day?
Please bring the registration confirmation email with QR code sent to your email to the registration area in order to get a badge printed to enter the event.
Where can I find my QR code for registration?
Upon successful completion of registration through the W.Media website, your QR code will be sent to your email address.
Can I bring my colleague along? Does he/she need to register?
Cloud and Datacenter professionals and media partners are welcome to attend. All attendees must register on the W.Media event page.