Mitesh Patel has been named interim CEO and chief operating officer of the international part of the venture, while Mark Branson will continue as chief development officer of SunCable Australia.

The project involves a proposed 20 gigawatt solar farm near Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, an 800 km overhead transmission line to Darwin, a high-voltage undersea cable for the 4300 km link to Singapore, and converter sites in Darwin and Singapore.

Mr Cannon-Brookes, a former minority partner in Sun Cable alongside Fortescue Metals chairman Andrew Forrest, said the project “has all the component parts to make the next great Australian infrastructure initiative possible”, and pointed to “huge upside” for both Australia and its neighbours, Singapore and Indonesia. “It will create more local jobs and support our green manufacturing and renewable energy industries. It’s set to deliver huge volumes of green energy to Darwin – powering a burgeoning green industry opportunity in the NT,” he said in a statement.

Grok said that through the due diligence process for the acquisition, it “obtained comfort” that there is a deep pool of high-quality prospective customers for power from the project.

To date, Sun Cable has received expressions of interest of about six times the volume of power it will supply to Darwin and about one-and-a-half times the supply volume to Singapore, or 2.5GW of interest.