Key facts
- NextDC chief executive Craig Scroggie said projects without a customer contract are no longer a priority.
- Scroggie did not say how many projects would be paused; NextDC's 2026 annual report listed 11 centres in development or planning.
- Goodman Group and Digital Realty said they have no plans at the moment to launch a takeover offer but reserved the right to do so.
- NextDC's share price recovered the ground lost from the earnings writedown after the stake purchase.
NextDC said on November 9 that it would stop work on all data centre projects without customer contracts, following a setback at its M3 facility in Melbourne. Chief executive Craig Scroggie told the UBS Australasia conference that anything without a customer contract and a customer commitment "is now no longer a priority." He did not say how many projects would be paused; NextDC's 2026 annual report listed 11 centres in development or in the planning stages.
Work on the M3 expansion was suspended because of power delays and community backlash, and the company cut its earnings forecasts in October 2026. Its share price fell 42% after the cut. Scroggie said the M3 delay meant the top priority was winning community backing for the project, and that work could not restart until NextDC had "earned the trust of everybody that's been supporting us."
He said the situation was "probably reflective of the global environment in relation to the engagement, social license, people's feelings about artificial intelligence and data centres being the physical embodiment of that."
Goodman Group and its New York-listed partner Digital Realty bought a 9.9% stake in NextDC for A$715 million ($492 million) in the week before November 9, after the share price fall. The two said they had no plans at the moment to launch a takeover offer but reserved the right to do so, and said they would "look forward to a potential collaboration with the NextDC board and management on the ways and forms in which the parties may help to address the challenges facing the company." Scroggie said the interest was not a surprise: "now might be the time." NextDC's share price recovered the ground lost from the earnings writedown after the stake purchase.