Wholesale data center provider Digital Realty Trust is bidding on a large data center consolidation project by government of the large Australian state New South Wales. To bid on the contract, The San Francisco-based real estate investment trust that specializes in data centers has teamed up with the global investment firm Macquarie, according to a report by Australian IT.

NSW government is looking to consolidate data center properties in 130 locations down to two data centers. The DRT/Macquarie team is one of 17 applicants that expressed interest in pursuing the contract.

Other applicants include Equinix, Fujitsu, Oracle, Sun and Global Switch.

Digital Realty has been expanding its data center properties rapidly in the past several months through both acquisitions of fully built and leased-out data centers and by buying green-field sites for development.

One of most recent examples was DRT's announcement earlier this month of a $63.3 million acquisition of two fully leased data centers and of a parcel of land in northern Virginia. The company also recently announced its acquisition of three built-out properties in Connecticut and Massachusetts for $375 million.