Spark invests $15m in Waikato's digital infrastructure in NZ

Spark, New Zealand's largest telecommunications and digital services company, has disclosed its plan to inject over $15 million into digital infrastructure in the Waikato region. Aimed at bolstering the availability of high-quality cloud and connectivity services in the area, Spark's investment is proposed to yield significant benefits for the local business community.

As part of this venture, Spark is joining forces with the University of Waikato. The two entities will collaborate on the management of the University's existing data centre facility on-campus, with Spark committing additional substantial investment to the elevation of its capacity, alongside making necessary upgrades. This will essentially transform the facility into a pivotal edge data centre for Spark and its associated business customers.

Further growth of the data centre will be facilitated by Spark's concurrent investment in a new, contemporary fibre backbone that will stretch from Otorohonga to Te Kauwhata. This measure will notably boost connectivity to the data centre facility, while also enhancing resilience. It will serve the rapidly expanding Hamilton East and Ruakura areas.

Mark Beder, the Spark Customer Director for Enterprise and Government, illustrated their enthusiasm for the partnership. He said, "We are thrilled to be partnering with the University of Waikato to build data centre capacity and enhance connectivity and resilience in the region. We have a clear strategy at Spark to invest in data centre capacity for New Zealand, and building a network of regional data centres is an important part of these plans."

For the University of Waikato, the partnership also brings multiple advantages. The Chief Information Officer of the university, Eion Hall, concurred with Beder's sentiments and shared the University's perspective. "As the University modernises our IT and cloud infrastructure, we are excited to partner with Spark... This partnership also enables us to focus on our technology strategy, and utilising Spark's capabilities as a leading data centre operator, strategically supporting our business application and ICT infrastructure projects," he said.

In a suite of progressively strategic manoeuvres, Spark's data centre strategy includes the development of three large-scale data centre campuses in Auckland's North Shore, CBD (Aotea), and South (Takanini), in tandem with continued investments in metro sites in Wellington and Christchurch. It is committed to maintaining edge data centre facilities in regional hubs like Hamilton, Tauranga, and Dunedin. Such portfoliio diversity is geared towards addressing a wide array of customer requirements.

On another note, Spark and the University of Waikato have collaborated with the Research Education Advanced Network New Zealand (REANNZ) to link data centre sites at the University of Waikato and Spark's Takanini data centre facility in Auckland to New Zealand's national research, science, and education digital network. The endeavour brings primary stakeholders into a global connection with over 120 networks, to facilitate international collaboration for researchers.