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Committee for Sydney
Sydney’s fast-growing tech sector and strong economy is driving a data-led digital gold rush to the city – according to the annual pulse check on the city’s performance.
The State of the City report, produced by urban policy think tank Committee for Sydney and BDO, analyses what the data tells us about the coming year: how the city’s growing, how people are moving around the city, where innovation is underway and the emerging trends set to shape the year ahead.
Key data points on the Sydney economy, which drove more than 20% of Australia’s GDP in 2024/25:
- Top 3 for venture capital investment across APAC – only behind Shanghai and Bengaluru – with funding reaching $690 million in 2025
- 57% of venture capital allocated in Australia over the last 24 years has flowed to NSW
- In the tech sector alone, NSW has produced 17 unicorns, with 28 more in the pipeline
- In 2022, innovation-intensive firms employed 136,000 people in NSW, more than mining and agriculture combined
- Second only to the USA on investment in data centres, with $6.7 billion invested in 2024
- Sydney leads the nation with 88 data centres – over 1/3 of all data centres nationally but totalling more than 60% of the country’s capacity
- Data centre development forecast to expand significantly, drawing up to $150 billion in business investment by 2027, concentrated in Western Sydney.
