New Zealand's data centre market faces a run of decisions before 31 December. Datagrid says the earthworks platform its 280MW Makarewa campus in Southland will stand on is due by the end of December, and expects to commit to the build before the year is out. Contact Energy and CDC are preparing to seek consent for a 250MW campus at Stratford in Taranaki. Mercury says the three power stations it is finishing, worth about NZ$1 billion, will be fully operating by 31 December. Transpower, the national grid operator, has eleven data centre connections at its assessment or design stage, a gigawatt between them on a count BCG sources to Transpower. The country votes on 7 November, with official results due on 27 November, and the data centre investment principles Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis was directed to draft on 27 July carry no published date. Six calls follow on what the record will show at 31 December, each with the indicators behind it and the case against. This is the first New Zealand set, and it will be scored here in January 2027.

The biggest call is that Makarewa's first named tenant is an AI developer or a GPU cloud company, which would put the American AI build-out into New Zealand's largest data centre project by disclosed capacity ahead of any of the three big cloud providers. The six calls below turn on what companies commit capital to, because the dated decisions in this window are theirs.

Six calls to 31 December 2026

1. Makarewa's first named tenant is an AI developer or a GPU cloud company rather than Microsoft, Amazon or Google. Datagrid's head of technology Benjamin Black told a Southland business audience on 18 August that the campus design had narrowed "as we've focused in on a specific application with a specific tenant", and founder Rémi Galasso told this publication that the American AI companies "are moving fast into our region" and that Southland's pitch is "a trusted place to train and store the world's most valuable data". The largest AI compute contract disclosed for New Zealand is Sharon AI's US$1.32 billion, five-year deal to serve a global AI lab from a New Zealand site, and Sharon AI is a GPU cloud company, one that rents AI computing to other businesses. Microsoft and Amazon already run Auckland cloud regions, and Mercury chief executive Stew Hamilton told analysts on 18 August he had spoken to "hyperscalers, AI companies and developers" and found "an insatiable appetite for compute demand". The case against: neither Makarewa nor Stratford has named a customer, and Microsoft and Amazon are the two companies that have built cloud regions in New Zealand so far.

2. New Zealand's disclosed data centre pipeline passes a gigawatt, nearly five times the operating fleet. Disclosed here means a project with a megawatt figure on the public record. The country runs about 208MW across 36 colocation facilities on Arizton's June count, and the projects in New Zealand's data centre build that carry a megawatt figure add up to about 826MW: Datagrid's 280MW at Makarewa, the 250MW computing load Contact and CDC describe at Stratford, TenPeaks' pipeline of more than 130MW across three Auckland campuses, DCI's 40MW AKL02 under construction, and the 126MW of future build BCG records for CDC's Hobsonville and Silverdale campuses. The research house BMI, counting on its own definitions, put 313MW planned and 89MW under construction in July. Transpower's eleven assessments total a gigawatt with Datagrid's 300MW connection application the largest, which leaves about 700MW across ten projects BCG leaves unnamed. BCG's August report maps six advantaged zones with grid headroom and fibre, Taupō, Manawatū, Taranaki, North Waikato, South Canterbury and Central Otago, while Invest New Zealand markets Twizel, Ōhau, Geraldine and Cromwell alongside Makarewa. The Auckland summit on 12 August settled on five to ten AI data centres above 100MW by 2030, sited close to generation. The case against: only two projects above 200MW have reached the public record, and the twelve prospective data centres the Electricity Authority logged have stayed confidential.

3. A second AI compute contract above US$1 billion is disclosed for New Zealand, and the chips go into an existing Auckland hall. Sharon AI's July deal, which BCG records as NZ$2.26 billion, will see the company "install advanced NVIDIA chips in existing partner data centre facilities", on BCG's account, and chief executive James Manning called New Zealand "a strong foundation for future expansion" serving enterprise, government, hyperscale, AI native and research customers across Asia-Pacific. On Sharon AI's own pricing the first contract occupies about 15MW, which fits inside the Auckland capacity New Zealand's data centre operators already hold, with CDC running 98MW across two campuses, DCI's 40MW AKL02 under construction and TenPeaks holding land for more than 130MW. Chorus will sell a data centre its TimeSync precision timing signal from early 2027 in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, and says a colocation operator can buy it for its own site. Sharon AI reported 212MW of expected data centre capacity company-wide at its 6 August results, with more than 62,000 NVIDIA GPUs targeted by mid-2027. The case against: Sharon AI has still to name its New Zealand site or its customer, and a 15MW footprint can sit inside company-wide totals with no New Zealand figure attached.

4. An operator turns the lower water and generator figures it volunteered into binding consent conditions before the government publishes its principles. Datagrid turned down the government's fast-track route at Makarewa for what Galasso called "the classic resource consent process", which puts what it promises in front of a council as an enforceable condition. Black told the same 18 August briefing that the consent already carries four checks: legally binding conditions, metered and reported water use, a formal complaints process, and the council's power to review those conditions. The company volunteered lower water and generator figures to a business audience before any document required them and says it will seek a variation to carry the lower generator count, and Galasso said monthly public meetings will run at the Makarewa Country Club. Contact and CDC are seeking consent at Stratford under the standard process too, with no Stratford data centre on the government's fast-track register, and BCG's August report puts a voluntary code on energy and environmental standards and a community benefits framework under the heading "now (end of year)". The case against: Datagrid has given no date for lodging a variation, its lower figures have not appeared in any application to the councils, and the principles Prime Minister Christopher Luxon commissioned on 27 July could be published first.

5. Meridian signs its first data centre deal, and it is in the South Island. Meridian owns the Manapōuri power station at one end of the high-voltage lines the new Transpower substation at Makarewa will tap, and it runs the six Waitaki hydro stations from a control centre in Twizel, one of Invest New Zealand's four zones. Mercury took equity in Datagrid in July and Contact is prepared to own half of Stratford, so two of New Zealand's four big generator-retailers already hold a data centre position, leaving Meridian and Genesis. Hamilton said Datagrid, Stratford and "maybe another one big data centre" would consume Mercury's ability to build power stations over five to ten years, so a fourth campus needs another generator's build programme. Galasso said Datagrid "can and will continue to work with other gentailers", the industry's word for generator-retailers, with information barriers between them. The case against: Meridian's 26 August results announcement names five generation projects and a 35-year Waitaki consent, its 2020 agreement in principle with Datagrid was never signed, and a June 2025 briefing from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment recorded its concerns about the project.

6. Datagrid's next equity round values the company above NZ$1 billion. Mercury's US$30 million for 12.7 per cent in July valued Datagrid at roughly NZ$420 million. Since then the company has paid Transpower in full for its four transformers, contracted the South Island's first international cable and started earthworks on 18 August. On 4 September an independent commissioner refused the review of its consent conditions that the Southland Sustainable Resource Coalition had sought. Galasso told the NZ Herald in August he is raising a Series B, the company's next funding round, against a build the paper reports at up to NZ$5 billion, and Brookfield's Sean Robertson told the Auckland summit that new data centre developments carry return expectations in the low to high teens per cent. Offshore, the British AI cloud company Nscale is raising at US$30 billion on US$33 million of 2025 revenue, and in Australia Firmus doubled its valuation in three months to more than US$10.5 billion. The case against: Mercury's results presentation files its Datagrid stake under options with further equity "optional and subject to separate approval", no debt facility has been announced, and in June Galasso told the Herald the financing was "still working on it".

What to watch

Datagrid's commitment to build settles the first call, with the tenant named in whatever it publishes, and a priced Series B, or a Mercury disclosure of a follow-on stake, settles the sixth. Every megawatt figure attached to a New Zealand project before 31 December counts toward the second, and any AI compute contract disclosed for the country tests the third. A variation granted at Makarewa, or consent conditions carrying an operator's volunteered figures, settles the fourth, and a Meridian announcement settles the fifth. Where the event behind a call has not happened by 31 December, that call will be scored as unresolved. Willis's principles and the government formed after 7 November decide the rules the campuses in all six are built under, and the six will be scored here in January 2027.