Where will the workers be housed? Mayor flags housing pressure from AI factory workforce

Saturday, 21 March 2026

Talks are under way on how to house workers who will arrive in Southland to construct an AI factory at Makarewa.

Invercargill mayor Tom Campbell says the large workforce needed to build the proposed AI factory near Invercargill will be a positive for the local economy, but also a negative in terms of “where do they live?”

A Great South survey of the Southland District Council area this year found half of the employers who responded said housing was a barrier to staff recruitment and economic growth.

This week, Datagrid said its AI factory at Makarewa was expected to create more than 1200 skilled and technical jobs during the construction phase.

Campbell said one of the things being talked about was to recruit as many workers from Southland as possible, and bussing in those living rurally, rather than recruiting construction workers from outside the region.

There would be workers with particular skills and trades who were not available from within Southland, and work would be done to support them in finding accommodation.

Developers would be spoken to, he indicated.

There were a “lot of ideas” about how to house the workers who arrived from outside the region and Datagrid chief executive Remi Galasso had been spoken to about his thoughts on the issue, the mayor said.

He added it was too early to get involved in physically setting up housing for the workers until it was 100% certain the $4b AI factory would proceed.

“At this stage it’s probably a 70% probability … when it’s 100% certain then you can start doing some of the downstream things like housing.

Housing will need to be found for people arriving in Southland to work on an AI factory, with construction expected to begin in June.

“We are talking about it (housing) and people are thinking about it but it’s too early to physically do anything.”

This week, a Datagrid press release said construction of the AI factory was expected to begin in June, with completion targeted for 2028.

Datagrid chief executive Rémi Galasso, when asked about the 1200-strong workforce, how the workers would be housed and how many would work at the AI factory once it was up and operating, said the company would provide comment at the appropriate time.