Melbourne’s data centre corridor in the west keeps growing. The Victorian Government has granted final approval for the first building of PGIM’s multi-stage, multi-billion-dollar data centre campus at 1 Oroya Drive, Truganina. The approved building is eight levels high.
From land purchase to approval in months
PGIM bought the site in February 2026. The 20.7-hectare parcel was the first Australian investment for its USD 2 billion Global Data Centre Fund. It sits 22 kilometres west of the Melbourne CBD. PGIM said it intends to invest AUD 1.2 billion in the first of three planned development phases.
What has been approved
The first building has an 80-megawatt capacity, and a 220kV connection and substation have been approved to link the land with the future Truganina Terminal Station. That is modest next to some other Melbourne proposals, but it is the grid connection that makes the site credible. PGIM’s global head of data centre investments, Morgan Laughlin, said the site can expand further as additional power allocation becomes available.
Why Truganina, and why now
PGIM pointed to strong demand, with many leading hyperscalers announcing plans to develop or take up significant capacity in and around Melbourne. The west offers large industrial land parcels, proximity to existing facilities and a transmission network that is being reinforced. PGIM is also not new to the Australian market. It has operated data centres here since 2022 through joint ventures with Equinix, including the SY9x facility in Sydney.
A crowded pipeline
Truganina is one of several large projects competing for Melbourne’s power and land.
- Stockland is seeking approval for a 250-megawatt data centre at its Brooklyn Distribution Centre.
- Dover DC is advancing a multi-stage campus in South Morang targeting up to 320 megawatts.
- Goodman has lodged a proposal for two data centre buildings at Clyde North.
- Keppel has proposed a $10 billion hub at Morwell, reportedly Australia’s largest AI campus.
The connectivity question
Approval is the start. The harder questions for Melbourne are how quickly power can be delivered to each campus, and how the diverse fibre routes and subsea landing connections will support AI-scale traffic into and out of these facilities. Data centres are only as valuable as the networks that reach them. For Victoria, the connectivity story needs to keep pace with the construction story.
