I think you need to consider the timing and reasoning behind the...

I think you need to consider the timing and reasoning behind the decisions made. The original NextDC facilities were designed some time ago, when centres of that magnitude were purpose built for very specific organisations. That may or may not have kept being the standard, and there was no guarantee somebody like Microsoft would even have representation here, let alone in a data centre which was not theirs. that A single 70MW data centre in any capital in Australia would probably still be less than 30% occupied, and so the investment would just not have stacked up.

Another consideration is that the total capacity that NextDC has across Australia is still greater than AirTrunk currently holds. the total capacity of the current centres at NextDC is utilised at 39.25MW out of a possible 44.05MW. A/T is sitting at a fraction of their 70MW possible capacity at present. When the three new centres are completed, NextDC will be at over 120MW, the same as A/T when they complete Melbourne. And NextDC has yet another centre planned for this year, I guess around 15MW - taking them to nearly 140MW by 2019. This diversity of geographical risk is attractive to many, where disaster recovery is considered critical. You don't currently have that at A/T.

The flexibility offered by producing centres of a size that NextDC has means that you get all the benefit of scale without the extra overhanging cost waiting for the centre to fill up. You get the ability to update to newer designs and equipment in new centres (and believe me, design styles and equipment change continuously in this field) which can be easily incorporated into a new centre, but often impossible in an older one. It keeps you at the cutting edge, with new accreditations and performance arrangements which cannot be achieved in an older centre. The new NextDC data centres are very different to the original ones. This also means that over time clients will have a choice, and there may be a pricing structure to suit the different accreditations.

Remember that NextDC still has the ability to scale to hypersize if they so wish ... but I'm pretty sure you'll find that the 32MW sweet spot has always been the preferred capacity, and that they would not go much further than that for the reasons mentioned above.

I've been in this for years, and so far they haven't put a foot wrong. I would think that they know exactly what A/T means , and are less than concerned about it ... there is an inbuilt flexibility in NextDC which the hyperscale centres just can't match, and will struggle with in this country.