en.Wedoany.com Reported - Vocus launches the Australian Digital Infrastructure Platform (ADIP) and announces the construction of its first piped long-haul fiber optic route connecting Sydney and Melbourne under this flagship program. The route can accommodate up to 6,912 fiber cores, is planned to be operational in 2029, with a capital investment of approximately AUD 500 million, and is expected to create over 1,000 high-value jobs.
Australia's data center capacity is expected to triple by 2030, with artificial intelligence workloads driving 85% to 95% of long-haul fiber demand and 70% to 80% of metro demand. The Sydney-Melbourne corridor currently carries approximately 40% of Australia's long-haul data traffic, and without new investment, supply shortages will emerge in the short term.
Vocus CEO Andrés Irlando stated that the launch of the ADIP project is the result of customer demand and extensive analysis of the global and Australian fiber optic markets. Irlando noted that the AI era requires high-capacity, diverse fiber optic networks as a key support for the digital infrastructure ecosystem. Like many countries, Australia currently lacks sufficient terrestrial and submarine networks to support existing and future AI workloads. Through ADIP, Vocus will meet customers' rapidly growing demand for high-capacity, sovereign fiber optic networks that meet global standards.
The new Sydney-Melbourne route will deploy piped technology for the first time on an inter-capital route in Australia, a standard used by leading AI and cloud providers in North America and Europe. Chief Technology Officer Nikos Katinakis stated that piped fiber optic network construction is more demanding and costly, but enables future capacity increases without the need for re-excavation or disruption to customers' active networks, while providing greater resilience and protection against cable damage, improving customer uptime and service levels.
ADIP is a multi-year program aimed at closing the fiber optic capacity gap in Australia driven by the current AI boom. The new platform will involve large-scale investment, including thousands of kilometers of new fiber optic routes and thousands of new fiber pairs, as well as building hundreds of terabits of capacity in complementary locations with the land, water, and power required to support large AI workloads. ADIP will also underpin digital infrastructure critical to national security, economic development, regional connectivity, and essential services such as banking, health, education, and emergency communications.
Vocus is supported by two infrastructure investors, Macquarie Asset Management and Aware Super. These two companies hold Vocus as an infrastructure asset, and their scale and track record in nation-building investments enable Vocus to provide the globally competitive fiber optic backbone that Australia needs in the AI era through its existing fiber network and ADIP.
