New Zealand has the potential to deliver over a gigawatt (GW) of new compute capacity over the next five years, an increase from the previous 600-megawatt base scenario, which could see New Zealand capture 0.5% of global compute capacity in 2030, according to a Thursday report by Boston Consulting Group.
The global data center market has nearly doubled in size over the past five years and is expected to more than double again by 2030, reaching 198 GW of compute capacity, excluding China. This growth is increasingly concentrated around artificial intelligence training and inference on the latest high-performance chips.
New Zealand has many of the structural factors required to support data centers. Its energy grid could power data centers, with the share of renewables on track to exceed 95% from 2027.
A total of 5 terawatt-hours (TWh) of annual renewable generation was commissioned from 2020 to 2025, equivalent to 11% of 2025 total generation. 3.4 TWh of electric generation is in the construction or final commissioning phases, to be delivered in 2026 to 2028.
It also has international subsea routes to the US and Australia, a stable operating environment, mild climate, and comparable costs to other developed Asia Pacific countries.
Developing data centers and the supporting fiber and energy infrastructure could attract NZ$25 billion to NZ$35 billion of locally retained private investment, create up to 3,500 jobs at the construction peak, and 1,200 ongoing operational jobs once construction is complete.
