Two Faraday cages have been put in place at the Square Kilometre Array site in Western Australia to protect the giant radio telescope from interference caused by RF leaks coming from inside the data centre. The data centre and the array are being built in Murchison, a remote location that provides a needed environment of radio quietness. Despite the radio silence at the location, the data centre's computers, which connect to the city of Perth, generate stray RF, spurring the need for Faraday cages to prevent the electromagnetic energy from escaping.

The international massive array, which will have 131,072 antennas, is still a work in progress since it was started in 2022. The site in Australia is home to the array's low-frequency antennas; South Africa is housing the mid-frequency antennas. The observatory and headquarters are at the Jodrell Bank Observatory in northwest England.

Although the array will still be a work in progress through to 2029, Philip Diamond, director of the SKA Observatory, recently told The Register website that tests may be run on the facility as early as 2027. He told The Register: [quote] "By then we will have the largest physical low-frequency telescope on the planet." [endquote]