At a glance
The Data Centre Leaders Summit New Zealand runs on 12 August 2026 at Cordis Auckland, with organisers expecting more than 250 decision-makers.
Chorus is headline partner, and Datacom, DCI Data Centres, Datacentre220, Transpower, Energy Estate, Brookfield, Invest New Zealand and EY hold speaking slots.
Transpower, Energy Estate and Grid Share take the closing energy panel, which asks where the next 300MW will come from.
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Penny Simmonds gives the closing address, three months out from the 7 November election.
Mackenzie Basin residents hold their own meeting on data centres the same day, at the Twizel Events Centre.
Chorus headlines the 12 August summit at Cordis Auckland
The Data Centre Leaders Summit New Zealand runs for one day at Cordis Auckland on 12 August 2026, the New Zealand edition of a summit that has run in Sydney since 2024. Chorus is headline partner. Vertiv, DHL, Octave, Cupix, Honeywell, Autodesk, DLA Piper, Red Badge Group and Spark also carry partner or exhibitor slots, and 15 roundtables run in a single block before lunch.
The opening panel on New Zealand's competitive position in the Asia Pacific puts Datacom's data centres director Matt Neil alongside Datacentre220 chief executive Ross Delaney and Chorus head of infrastructure partners Sam Excell. Andrew Green of AG Squared Consulting chairs the day, with the international keynote from Nomad Futurist's Nabeel Mahmood. DCI Data Centres' New Zealand operations director Peter Skipper, Turner & Townsend associate director Charlene Furter and Vertiv ANZ country head LuLu Shiraz take the construction panel, moderated by Vastra Consulting director Raji Rai.
Chorus chief technology officer Martin Sharrock has the connectivity slot, on how open-access fibre geography shapes where sites can go. Chorus is separately building a precise timing service for launch in 2027.
Three sessions we will be keeping a closer watch on as they track prominent questions live in New Zealand. Independent consultant Hugh Robinson leads a roundtable on moving from serving New Zealand to serving the wider Asia Pacific, and Datagrid's Melbourne cable is built on that premise. Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Penny Simmonds closes the day, three months from the election and while Willis's principles are being drafted. Capital sessions draw the biggest rooms at events like this, and this one puts Invest New Zealand, Brookfield and Datacom together.
Transpower and Energy Estate end the day on the next 300MW
The final panel asks where the next 300MW will come from. Transpower head of customer and commercial Timothy Duguid takes it with former Mercury portfolio executive Phil Gibson, Energy Estate co-founder Simon Currie and Grid Share chief technology officer Sam Kivi, moderated by Carbon and Energy Professionals New Zealand chief executive Mike Hopkins. Nuclear, storage, demand flexibility and connection delays all appear in the session description.
Datagrid's Makarewa campus near Invercargill won resource consent from three Southland councils in March 2026, and its grid connection remains at Transpower's investigative stage, where the grid operator assesses technical feasibility and available capacity. Mercury holds an option over up to 140MW under a 15-year agreement and paid US$30 million for 12.7 per cent of the developer in July.
Contact Energy and CDC Data Centres said on 10 August they will seek consent for a 250MW campus at Stratford in Taranaki, near the site of the Taranaki Combined Cycle plant Contact decommissioned this year. Contact chief executive Mike Fuge described the location as an "attractive option" for data centre development, citing "500 MW of grid-scale batteries already consented and an existing grid connection". Contact's 200MW of peaking generation at Stratford is unaffected.
Project | Capacity | Status |
|---|---|---|
Contact and CDC, Stratford, Taranaki | 250MW | Consent to be sought |
Datagrid, Makarewa, Southland | 280MW | Consented March 2026, connection at investigative stage |
CDC, Hobsonville Campus Two, Auckland | 54MW | Operating |
DCI, AKL02, Auckland | 40MW | Under construction |
TenPeaks, Auckland | 130MW+ pipeline | Land held |
Source: operator disclosures and company announcements to 10 August 2026.
Arizton puts New Zealand's operational market at about 208MW across 36 colocation facilities in the June 2026 edition of its portfolio report. Built at the size proposed, Stratford alone would draw more power than that entire fleet has installed. The Electricity Authority has logged 12 further prospective projects beyond Datagrid, with details confidential. Green co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick says neither Transpower's 2025 Transmission Planning Report nor the government's own Electricity Demand and Generation Scenarios account for the 1,000MW Datagrid has projected at full build.
Invest New Zealand names Twizel among five advantaged zones
Invest New Zealand has named Twizel, Ōhau, Geraldine, Cromwell and Makarewa as advantaged data centre zones, citing existing grid capacity, energy infrastructure and proximity to backhaul fibre. Residents meet at the Twizel Events Centre on 12 August, the same day the industry meets in Auckland. Twizel Community Board chair Mary Murdoch told 1News: "This is our home, our landscape, our businesses and our community." A petition from Stop Data Centres NZ asks for legislation restricting construction, citing water volumes and transparency over use and discharge. Part of the area sits inside the Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve.
Datagrid's Makarewa consents were granted on a non-notified basis, which under the Resource Management Act means no public submissions were invited. The Green Party cited non-notified consenting when it called for a one-year pause on new AI data centre consents in July. DLA Piper partner Rob Macredie leads the Auckland roundtable on policy, regulation and market settings, and EY New Zealand partner Matthew Cowie leads one on energy costs.
Pacific Equity Partners holds 75% of TenPeaks
Brookfield owns DCI, the Australian Future Fund sits alongside New Zealand-listed Infratil in CDC, and Pacific Equity Partners holds 75 per cent of TenPeaks. Datacom operates five facilities and is majority New Zealand-owned. Microsoft's New Zealand North cloud region has run since December 2024, and AWS opened its New Zealand region in 2025.
Invest New Zealand investment director Simon Ansley shares the capital panel with Brookfield debt investments managing director Sean Robertson and Datacom's Matt Neil, moderated by Datacom Group board director Hishaam Mirza. Ansley also presents on New Zealand as an emerging data centre and AI hub.
BCG put the prize at up to $70 billion of economic activity over the next decade in Data centres as strategic infrastructure, published on 19 February 2026. The figure assumes large-scale data centres paired with new renewable generation.
Willis orders new price measures for future data centres
Finance Minister Nicola Willis has said the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment advised her in July on the data centres due to connect over the next 12 months. Those projects were not expected to lift electricity prices, she said, given the arrangements the operators have in place. Energy Minister Simeon Brown puts AI data centres at around 0.6 per cent of New Zealand's power at this stage. The Electricity Authority estimates Datagrid's first phase at about 4.25 per cent of national consumption, or 1.7TWh.
Willis has since directed officials to develop measures that keep future data centres from lifting prices, drawing on what Australia and other jurisdictions have done, and to secure additional generation where data centres arrive.
Luxon told RNZ on 27 July that officials expected no upward pressure from the three data centres due to connect within the year, calling it "the official advice we've got". His office later told the Green Party under the Official Information Act that the material its request captured was "a set of media talking points" prepared for his morning media engagements. Thomas Coughlan reported the exchange for the NZ Herald on 3 August. Willis then confirmed the MBIE advice, which she had given Luxon verbally.
Luxon has asked Willis and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to develop principles for the sector, and has said large projects should demonstrate additionality without naming a threshold. Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Penny Simmonds gives the closing address, with the election on 7 November.
What to watch
Transpower's investigative work on Makarewa. Datagrid holds resource consent and is still in the phase where Transpower assesses feasibility and available capacity. Any other South Island project of that scale will pass through the same step.
The Stratford application. Contact and CDC have named a site and a size, with the consent application still to come. The size of the request, and the treatment of the existing connection and the consented batteries, will set the reference point for the next retired thermal site.
The Mackenzie meeting. Stop Data Centres NZ is asking for legislation restricting construction, a larger ask than the Greens' one-year pause. What Mackenzie District Council and Environment Canterbury say next will shape any application inside the zone.
Willis's principles. Willis and the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet hold the work, and its scope has not been announced. The government could land on guidance, on consent conditions or on legislation, and the composition of the next government will decide which.