• Project: SC2 Sunshine Coast, NextDC's second data centre in Maroochydore
• Address: 10 South Sea Islander Way, Maroochydore (Maroochydore City Centre Priority Development Area)
• Site area: about 3,711 sqm
• Building: five levels, about 26.2 metres high, with data halls, offices, standby generators and 20 car spaces
• Approval: development permit for a material change of use (research and technology industry) granted by Economic Development Queensland in June 2025
• Investment: reported as US$200 million when NextDC confirmed the build in July 2025
• Capacity: about 6MW of IT capacity planned in total, with roughly 1MW in the first stage
• Status: under construction
• Expected opening: January to June 2027
• Neighbour: SC1 Sunshine Coast at 44 Maud Street, the operating cable landing data centre

NextDC lodged the SC2 application in April 2025. Because the land sits inside the Maroochydore City Centre Priority Development Area the application went to Economic Development Queensland rather than through the standard council planning scheme. The application sought a material change of use for a research and technology industry with ancillary uses.

The town planning report prepared by Ethos Urban argued the 26.22 metre building height would act as a step between the taller city centre towers and the low-rise housing to the east, including lots on Maud Street with a lower height limit. That transition argument is worth noting for anyone holding land on the city centre fringe, because it shows how height and bulk are being negotiated at the edge of the priority development area.

Approval came through in June 2025. A month later NextDC announced it had formal approval to proceed, describing SC2 as the region's first dedicated "AI Factory" designed for Tier IV resilience with a 100 per cent uptime guarantee. Sunshine Coast Mayor Rosanna Natoli called it a defining moment for the region.

NextDC's half-year results to 31 December 2025 listed 1MW at SC2 among the capacity it was progressing. Its full-year FY26 results, released on 27 August 2026, again named SC2 Sunshine Coast alongside Geelong and Darwin as edge network builds being expanded to accommodate cable landing stations and critical network infrastructure.

Local reporting in July 2026 confirmed the building was under construction with an expected online date between January and June 2027. NextDC has not published a construction percentage or a fixed opening date, so the first half of 2027 is the best guide for now.

For scale, NextDC finished FY26 with 287.9MW of built capacity nationally. SC2 is a small piece of that portfolio. Its importance comes from location rather than size: it sits on top of the Coast's international cable connections.

The biggest change since our first post happened offshore. In November 2025 Google's Tabua subsea cable was pulled ashore at Maroochydore and connected at NextDC's cable landing station. NextDC described it as the first direct subsea cable between Australia and the United States that is diverse from Sydney.

Tabua is part of Google's Australia Connect program. It links the US to Australia via Hawaii and Fiji, with a second Australian landing in Sydney completed in February 2026. Reports put the system at 16 fibre pairs, each designed for at least 17Tbps. Vocus invested alongside Google and is linking its national fibre network of roughly 50,000 km to the cable. At the time of the Sydney landing, service was still expected to start later in 2026.

This sits on top of the Sunshine Coast International Broadband Network, the council-backed cable installed in December 2019 that connects to the Japan-Guam-Australia South system and went fully live in 2020. SC1 at 44 Maud Street is the landing point for that cable. It is a 1MW-plus edge facility with around 290 sqm of technical space and room for more than 80 racks.

Two international cables landing in the same block is what turns a modest edge site into nationally significant infrastructure. SC2 is being built to sell space right next to those connections.

Power is where data centres meet the wider community. A July 2026 Sunshine Coast News analysis estimated that SC2 running its full 6MW of IT load all year would use about 52.56 GWh, roughly the annual use of 10,500 typical Energex households. Combined with SC1 the two sites total about 7MW, or around 12,200 homes. Those are theoretical full-load figures and they exclude cooling and other plant. Maroochydore itself has about 11,420 dwellings.

NextDC has not published SC2's expected electricity or water use. Energex says large customers above 1 MVA pay the full cost of a dedicated network connection. Unitywater has said there is no cause for concern about current supply.

The Prime Minister has also announced new standards for large AI and data centres, expected to be legislated in early 2027, requiring operators to fund additional generation, transmission and any extra water infrastructure. As reported, those rules are aimed at new proposals, so a project already under construction such as SC2 is not expected to be caught.

No land price for the SC2 site has been made public, so there is no clean dollar-per-square-metre benchmark to quote. What the project does show is the type of site that suits an edge data centre: a compact lot of under 4,000 sqm, inside a priority development area with a clear approval path, beside an existing cable landing station and with a strong power connection.

That is very different from the hyperscale model. CDC's planned $15 billion campus at Gregadoo near Wagga Wagga, AWS's $20 billion Australian commitment and Goodman's $4 billion data centre push all chase large land holdings and hundreds of megawatts. Maroochydore is about fibre, latency and network diversity at a fraction of the footprint.

For owners near the Maroochydore City Centre the likely effects are indirect. A Tier IV facility with two international cables next door strengthens the case for technology, government and research tenants choosing the city centre. That supports office and mixed-use demand over time, which matters as the precinct keeps adding approvals like the 18-level Rivianne tower at 132-136 Aerodrome Road.

Industrial owners in places such as Kunda Park should treat SC2 as a signal rather than a price driver. A 6MW edge facility will not lift industrial land values by itself. Still, fibre access, power capacity and approvals history are becoming points that buyers and tenants ask about, so they belong in any sales or leasing material.

• Know your power position. Find out your current supply capacity and how close you are to substation and network upgrades. It is often the first question serious occupiers ask.
• Map your fibre. Proximity to cable routes and landing stations is a genuine selling point on the Sunshine Coast. Show it clearly on a location map.
• Check height and transition controls. SC2's approval leaned on a height transition argument. If you hold fringe land, understand how your controls compare to the city centre.
• Do not overstate the halo. Buyers know the difference between a 6MW edge site and a hyperscale campus. Credible, specific information builds more trust than hype.
• Present the precinct, not just the lot. Clear visuals that show the asset within the city centre, its cable connections and new neighbours help buyers and tenants understand value quickly.

The next milestones are the Tabua cable entering service, NextDC's next half-year results in early 2027 and SC2 opening in the first half of 2027. Watch for whether NextDC moves beyond the initial 1MW stage towards the full 6MW, whether it discloses SC2's power and water use and how the federal data centre standards are finally written.

Also watch the land around it. If more technology and network businesses cluster near the Maud Street and South Sea Islander Way landing site, the Maroochydore City Centre's commercial story gets stronger. We will keep tracking the NextDC Maroochydore data centre as it moves from construction to operation.