A 'top secret' data center valued at AU$500 million (US$335.16m) is being proposed for private land next to the HMAS Harman Military Base in Canberra, Australia.
According to reports from The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH), the project will see former Coalition minister Stuart Robert benefit off the back of policies he introduced.
Robert, previously Australia's digital minister, was responsible for the government policy that all Australian government data should be housed on-shore. He has now used this policy as the basis for the planned Canberra data center, from which he stands to financially benefit.
The facility is proposed for land privately owned by ex-Defense official, Amresh Sharma.
Roberts is seeking to raise AU$500 million for the data center which will be used to store defense secrets and other sensitive government information via his company Coram Deo Capital Pty Ltd. The venture reportedly also includes other political figures - including lobbyists David Gazard and Scott Briggs
According to leaked documents seen by The Age and SMH, Robert is in talks with investment management companies - Blackstone Inc. was specifically named - regarding the project and has also held discussions with "global SaaS providers" regarding additional data center capacity, including Oracle and Salesforce.
Robert is currently in the mud of another scandal, also involving Oracle and Salesforce. Reported in 2022, the minister was accused of using his political influence to help friends win consulting work with government contractors. Salesforce and Oracle allegedly enjoyed "privileged access" to Robert after hiring one of his friends as their consultant.
Robert, when contacted about the data center project, stated that "if" he were involved in such a venture, it would be "well after the time" he is required to wait following his role as a minister. Ministers are required to wait 18 months before engaging in some dealings with government and defense officials.
The data center project does not seem to be linked with the Amazon Web Services data center development announced in July of this year and is also set to house top-secret information.
That data center and cloud system will be developed as a partnership between AWS and the Australian government, and the latter will invest A$2 billion (US$1.3 billion) in the new system over the next ten years.
Notably, the location of the AWS project was not shared due to the sensitive nature of the data it would be housing. Whether the leaked documents with this latest data center proposal including the planned address will be an issue, is unclear.
