One of Australia’s biggest proposed data centres has scrapped its target start date, after the Northern Territory’s environment regulator said it needed more time to decide what hurdles the project must clear, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

What happened

Start-up Energy North is planning “Project Ares”, a 1-gigawatt gas and solar-powered data centre on a cattle ranch in the Territory’s remote north, 683 kilometres from the nearest city. Regulatory filings four months ago gave a “first power” date of 28 June 2028.

In a 7 October ruling, the NT Environment Protection Authority suspended its seven-week deadline to decide what assessment the project must undergo, saying it would seek advice from the federal government, which is “developing policy expectations for data centres and AI infrastructure developers”. It gave no new timeframe.

“The June 2028 date in our referral was an indicative schedule at the time of lodgement, and we’re no longer working to it,” Energy North vice president of project development Daniel Hunter told Reuters. He said the company would confirm timing once the regulator sets out terms for an environmental impact statement, and declined to say who was lined up to finance the project.

The regulator’s concerns

The proposed 191-square-kilometre campus includes a gas turbine system, a solar farm, an airstrip and accommodation for 4,300 construction workers. The EPA warned of 10 potential impacts, from straining water systems to disrupting Aboriginal sacred sites, and said it had a “low level of confidence in the effectiveness of proposed measures to manage potential significant impact”.

The Northern Land Council, in a submission to a federal inquiry, said that Aboriginal consultation in the Territory needs travel, interpreters and repeat visits, and that expediting it “does not produce prompt consent”.

Big ambitions, small grid

Project Ares is not the only giant proposal. Beetaloo Energy has proposed a data centre near Darwin twice the size, which on its own estimates could use up to 400 terajoules of gas a day, about 10 times the volume flowing from the Beetaloo Basin’s only producing project. Together the two projects would total 3 gigawatts, roughly 10 times peak demand on the Territory’s entire grid; both companies say they would combine renewables with their own gas-fired power rather than draw on the grid.

“Our antiquated planning frameworks weren’t designed for proposals like this,” urban planner Adam Beck told Reuters. “There is a certain heightened level of concern by the community, and that’s playing out on real projects.”

The delay adds to a run of setbacks for large data centre projects, including NextDC’s delayed Melbourne expansion. For investors and lenders, it underlines that power, water and community approvals, not just capital, are setting the pace of Australia’s AI infrastructure build.

Source: Reuters, published by iTnews, “NT data centre pulls timeline after regulator stalls” (3 November 2026).