Vocus today announced a new long-haul fibre route from Brisbane to Darwin, as the second project in its Australian Digital Infrastructure Platform (ADIP), to support growing demand from hyperscaler, neocloud, and enterprise customers. Vocus has started route planning, technical design, and customer engagement activities as part of the new project’s early works phase. Connecting Brisbane, Townsville, and Darwin, the new ducted long-haul fibre route will cover approximately 4,000 kilometres and accommodate up to 3,456 fibre strands. It is expected to be ready for service in 2030.
ADIP is Vocus’ multi-year initiative to address Australia's growing fibre capacity requirements driven by AI, cloud, and digital infrastructure investment. It entails thousands of new fibre route kilometres, thousands of new fibre pairs, and hundreds of additional terabits of capacity in both subsea and terrestrial networks. ADIP delivers mission-critical digital infrastructure supporting national security, economic development, regional connectivity, and essential services relied upon by Australians every day, including banking, healthcare, education, and emergency communications.
Vocus Chief Executive Officer Andres Irlando said: “Australia is in a period of unprecedented investment in AI infrastructure, data centres, and international connectivity, requiring exponential investment in new terrestrial and subsea fibre networks. Vocus launched ADIP to build the digital infrastructure Australia needs to compete globally in AI.
“Northern Australia is becoming a critical region for AI, cloud, and digital services, with Queensland and the Northern Territory emerging as important data centre precincts and gateways connecting Australia with Asia and the United States.”
Vocus Chief Technology Officer Nikos Katinakis said: “Every AI workload, cloud application, and digital service depends on moving large volumes of data between places. Vocus already operates critical international infrastructure in northern Australia, including the Darwin-Jakarta-Singapore Cable system and the North-West Cable System. Other global subsea network initiatives by Google and Meta with interests in northern Australia are also in progress.
“The Brisbane-Darwin corridor will strengthen the connection to Australia's east coast and give customers additional capacity, diversity, and resilience. It will also extend Australia’s first ducted inter-capital design, introduced initially by Vocus through ADIP’s Sydney-Melbourne route, creating a scalable foundation for incremental fibre deployments over time."
Vocus-commissioned market research indicates that Australia's data centre capacity will triple by 2030, with AI workloads projected to drive most of the future long-haul fibre demand. Existing fibre corridors are experiencing increasing utilisation and exhaustion as demand for connectivity continues to accelerate.
Vocus is owned by two of Australia's leading infrastructure investors, Macquarie Asset Management and Aware Super, supporting the company's long-term investment in critical national digital infrastructure.