Datacentres are a ticking time bomb. We must make sure AI’s benefits outweigh the costs | Nicki Hutley
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- Datacentres worldwide number more than 10,000 and are projected to grow 3.5x at an estimated cost of US$7tn — roughly 5% of global annual GDP.
- Australia has 286 active or planned datacentres, with global AI leaders including Anthropic eyeing the country as a potential training ground for their models.
- Australian datacentres are expected to triple the country's energy and water consumption by 2030, straining grids at a time when electrification for net-zero is the national priority.
- Queensland has said it is happy to keep using fossil fuels to power datacentres, resisting the federal government's "expectations" on energy sources.
- APRA has written to banks warning of accelerating AI cybersecurity risks and recommended — without stated irony — AI tools to mitigate them.
- Assistant minister Andrew Charlton told the Australian Business Economists in February that Australia must choose between remaining a "technology taker" or becoming "a world-class adopter, creator and exporter of AI technology."
- Datacentre investment has lifted Australian business investment off the floor, but because most equipment must be imported the direct GDP impact is close to zero and few jobs persist beyond the construction phase.
Why it matters: Datacentres are set to triple Australia's energy and water use by 2030 while contributing almost nothing to GDP beyond imported equipment and creating few ongoing jobs. With Queensland willing to lean on fossil fuels and APRA already warning banks about AI-driven cyber risk, the climate and security costs of the AI build-out are landing on the public while the upside flows largely to global tech firms.
