What’s in the AI data centre boom for us?
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In the early 2000s, we had the mining boom. Now it looks like we're embarking on a data centre boom. It's helping drive our economic growth. So should we as taxpayers be getting a bigger cut of the profits? Today, independent economist Sol S. Lake on how we're cashing in on AI. I'm Sam Hawley on Gadigal land in Sydney. This is ABC News Daily.
So every time we type a question into chatbots like ChatGPT or Claude, which at this point many of us are doing a lot, there's a data centre involved, isn't there, working very hard behind the scenes?
That's my understanding. Most of us, I think, are using fairly simple versions like the app that comes up these days when you Google something, but they do go to a data center somewhere and come back with something that purports to be an answer to your question.
From the country to the city, AI data centre developments are accelerating. Industry figures show there are already 162 operating across the nation.
In New South Wales, the state has declared it is open for business, approving more than $10 billion worth of projects in the past year alone. That includes a new $3.1 billion facility at Marsden Park in Sydney's northwest, the largest in the southern hemisphere.
You may have driven actually past one of these data centres because there are quite a few now in Australia, mainly in Sydney and Melbourne. They're kind of like just massive big warehouses that don't have windows and there's a lot going on inside which requires heaps of power and heaps of water.
Currently, data centres use about 2% of the electricity in Australia's main grid. That's the equivalent to 700,000 homes.
Well, that's right. In fact, they are often also surrounded by higher fences and barbed wire, which might make you think that there's a jail or a detention centre behind that barbed wire. But yes, it would seem that data centres are proliferating like mushrooms across much of Australia.
Yeah, and there is growing concern in relation to that, concern about the impact these centres might have on the local environment. Now, Rochelle Flood, she's the deputy mayor of Lane Cove in Sydney. She is actually really worried about these data centres that are popping up in her area. They already have one there, but they have five more in the pipeline.
This site is very close, sort of within 100 metres or 120 metres of the local primary school. It's very close to local homes. People are quite worried about the air quality impacts. There's also a big strain on the local energy grid for Lane Cove. And then there's the broader issues around sustainability and water use, of course.
It's a growing industry.
Well, it is growing very rapidly and not a lot is known about it and not a lot is disclosed about what is done by whom and for whom at these centres. So in much the same way as we've seen a pushback in rural communities against tourism, Renewable energy generation, wind farms and the like, and in particular against transmission infrastructure, that is poles and wires marching across farmlands, we're seeing something similar in urban areas with regard to data centres.
Yeah, because Australia, it is becoming one of the leading countries in the world to actually house these data centres, isn't it? Why is that?
Well, I think that's because we have a lot of space and because we have a reasonably tech-savvy population and because we're perceived as having or likely to have a
What is driving the data centre boom in Australia?
Ample resources of renewable energy if we make the transition to net zero, according to the commitments that the government has made under the Paris Accords and the like.
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