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Contracted capacity tripled to 740.1 MW while only 175 is billing, and the A$3.4 billion of capex spent closing that gap landed in the same year New South Wales and Canberra began rewriting the rules for connecting data centres.
The Investor · Invest desk
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Divide underlying EBITDA by the megawatts actually billing and you get A$1.42 million per megawatt per year [1], which is the figure that makes the rest of the result legible. Apply it to the 565.1 MW of forward order book, which NextDC says are binding contracts rather than options, reservations or pipeline [8], and you get roughly A$803 million of incremental annual EBITDA [2], about 8.2% on the A$9.75 billion of new capital raised since August 2025 [3]. For infrastructure that is a respectable yield. The catch is the verb tense.
Billed capacity grew 58% to 175.0 MW last year [9]; compound that and the 740.1 MW already contracted [1] takes about 3.2 years to reach the meter [7]. The book itself is arithmetic rather than ambition: 740.1 contracted less 175.0 billing leaves exactly the 565.1 unbilled [8]. The build cost, meanwhile, is banked now. One year of capex divided by the forward book is A$6.01 million per megawatt [4], which at A$1.42 million of EBITDA per megawatt is 4.2 years of EBITDA to repay the gross build before a dollar of interest [5], and capex ran 13.7 times underlying EBITDA [10]. Craig Scroggie called FY26 "the largest contracting year in NEXTDC's history" [18]; the A$397 million overshoot of a top guide already lifted three times, 13.2% over [7][9], is what that sentence costs.
Then the grid. The New South Wales consultation on data centre connections and consumption closes on 14 September 2026, with national recommendations expected to take effect from 2027 [13], and work by Oxford Economics Australia in association with AEMO has National Electricity Market data centre usage going from 5.1 TWh in FY26 to 33.7 TWh by FY36, a factor of 6.6 [14][11], with NSW and Victoria accounting for more than 85% of it [14]. McKinsey's reading is that electricity is the largest single source of operating-cost dispersion in AI colocation [15]. So the return on those 565.1 MW is decided less by leasing than by a connection queue and a tariff being drafted after the capex was committed.
The counter-case is decent. If connections get scarcer, capacity already energised or already in the queue reprices upward, and NextDC is sitting on A$8.7 billion of pro forma liquidity [11], roughly 2.6 years of building at FY26's pace [12], with which to buy that scarcity while slower operators consult. Separately, and cutting the other way, strip the A$128.8 million investment property revaluation [6] out of the A$82.1 million statutory profit [5] and the year is A$46.7 million in the red [6] (crudely, since the gain is not tax-adjusted), which makes the profit line a valuer's view of contracted megawatts rather than cash from them.
This is probably wrong, but I would read the equity as a bet on grid access rather than on AI demand, because the demand is the part already contracted. What would break the thesis: NSW grandfathering existing connections in September, and FY27 billed capacity stepping to something like 275 MW, at which point A$1.42 million per megawatt does the work and the queue is someone else's problem. Missing both leaves A$3.4 billion of capex idle while the interest accrues.
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
NextDC reported a record FY26 in which contracted capacity tripled to 740.1 MW.
Contracted utilisation surged by 202% in FY26.
The forward order book stands at 565.1 MW, over three times current billing utilisation, and NextDC states these are binding contracts, not options, reservations or pipeline opportunities.
NextDC (ASX: NXT) announced the FY26 result on 27 August.
Chief Executive and Managing Director Craig Scroggie said: "FY26 was the largest contracting year in NEXTDC's history."
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One issuer document, relayed once
Every load figure and dollar in this story — 740.1 MW, A$248.8 million, A$3,397 million — traces to NextDC's own FY26 announcement, and Cryptopolitan is the only outlet carrying it in our coverage. The disclosure does police itself: contracted capacity less billed capacity lands exactly on the 565.1 MW order book, and the revaluation gain is stated rather than buried in a note. What no one supplies is a voice from outside the company — no auditor commentary, no analyst pushback, no customer to confirm that a contract described as binding has no exit.
Concrete in the ground, not slideware
175 megawatts are billing today, up 58% in a year, and A$3.4 billion of switchgear, shell and fit-out went in to chase the rest — that is deployment with invoices attached. Kuala Lumpur opened with a foundation customer and Tokyo has broken ground. The restraint on the score is arithmetic rather than doubt: roughly three quarters of the contracted book is still unbilled, and at FY26's growth rate it takes about three years to work through what has already been signed.
Record profit, borrowed from a revaluation
The softest thing here is the word 'profit': without the A$128.8 million fair-value gain, FY26 is a A$46.7 million loss. Cryptopolitan says as much itself, which keeps the gap narrow rather than wide. What goes unpressed is the order book language — 'binding contracts, not options' is NextDC's own phrasing, repeated without a look at terms — and the A$397 million capex overshoot on guidance already raised three times, which gets a sentence where the tripled contracted capacity gets a headline.
Selling megawatts to the funding market
A company that has raised A$9.75 billion since last August has every reason to lead with contracted capacity rather than the quarter of it that bills; 'largest contracting year in our history' is written for lenders and equity holders. The demand scaffolding around the result comes from firms with skin in the build — Gartner on consumption, McKinsey on a A$1.7 trillion capex wave, Oxford Economics with AEMO on grid load. The relay adds a smaller incentive of its own: an AI-power narrative on a crypto news site, closing with a subscription pitch.
Firm on FY26, thin on everything after
Dated, specific and internally consistent disclosure gives a solid grip on the year just closed. The arithmetic laid over it is where confidence thins: A$1.42 million of EBITDA per billed megawatt and A$6.01 million of capex per contracted megawatt are sound divisions, but the conclusions drawn from them — 4.2 years to repay a megawatt, 3.2 years to bill the book, 2.6 years of liquidity — all assume one year's pattern repeats. With a single publisher and a single primary document, we also cannot check whether the NSW and Commonwealth timetable reads the way NextDC describes it.