HP has officially launched its plans for data center in a location more known for fast cars than data centers, in Sydney's West, valued AU$120m.

Eastern Creek ÔÇô home of New South Wale's V8 motorsport's Eastern Creek Raceway, will welcome data center clients when phase one of the build, which will be the equivalent of nine tennis courts of colocation operations space, become available at the end of the year. This is expected to grow to 45 tennis courts at full capacity.

The technology giant said the build it part of its push towards cloud computing as part of its new US$1bn global services infrastructure outlook. 

The Australian government said it also believes the project is also driven largely by Australia's National Broadband Plan, which it expects will encourage the take-up of cloud computing services in the region.

The Australian newspaper quoted Australian Federal Communications Minister Stephen Conroy as saying the HP build is among a number of new projects being seen across Australia at present, and believes the growing number of newbuilds could be attributed to the AU$36bn plan (for more on the NBN see our Focus report below).

"The NBN is the incentive," he told The Australian.

HP South Pacific managing director Paul Branding, however, said HP's new Eastern Creek data center build is being seen as part of an overall push for solutions in the region, which happens to tie in with the timing of the NBN.