Data centres and the future we want
- WePlanet Australia
- Jul 15
- 5 min read
Updated: Jul 16
The debate about data centres is really a debate about what kind of future we want.
AI and digital infrastructure are essential for our increasingly digital society and have enormous potential to improve human wellbeing and accelerate solutions to environmental challenges. But those benefits are not automatic. Without democratic oversight and clear rules, the gains may be captured by a small number of companies, or authoritarian regimes, while communities bear the environmental and social costs.
Outright rejection would likely see human and environmental progress go backwards.
Therefore, Australia should strike a pragmatic bargain: actively support data centres here, while requiring them to help build the clean energy system and digital sovereignty our future will depend on.
We welcome the Albanese government’s announcement this week to move towards a balanced approach to artificial intelligence and data centres, including requiring new data centres to add clean electricity generation or storage, and meet modern power and water efficiency standards. The government has also explicitly linked Australia’s ability to develop AI with questions of sovereignty and the risk of leaving our digital future in the hands of foreign monopolies.
Key points
Data centres have become essential infrastructure for modern services, healthcare, scientific research and Australia’s digital economy.
Australia should actively support the development of AI and data centre infrastructure here rather than simply pushing it overseas.
New data centres should help deliver additional clean energy for their own needs and the wider electricity grid.
Australia should allow reasonable transition periods for delivering that clean energy, recognising the time required to approve and build major energy infrastructure.
If we are serious about ramping up clean energy, Australia should lift the ban on nuclear power plants and allow technology companies to choose from all clean energy options.
Domestic data centres can strengthen Australia’s digital sovereignty and give our democratic institutions greater capacity to shape how AI and digital infrastructure are used.
Data centres operating in Australia should comply with Australian laws and standards governing AI, data and other digital technologies.
The tension is real.
Data centres use enormous amounts of electricity and, depending on their design, can consume significant amounts of water. They can create noise and local environmental impacts, while new electricity demand risks prolonging the use of coal and gas if clean generation cannot be built quickly enough.
At the same time, data centres are essential infrastructure for modern society. They sit behind banking apps, medical records, government services, cloud storage, small business websites and many of the digital tools Australians use every day. Beyond these everyday services, computing infrastructure supports medical research, genomic modelling, climate science, metallurgy, robotics, education and fraud detection.
AI is already helping scientists discover new medicines, improve weather and climate forecasting, optimise electricity grids, accelerate the development of cleaner materials, assist people with disabilities, and help farmers produce more food while using less water and fertiliser. These are exactly the kinds of innovations that can improve both human wellbeing and ecological resilience.
As more people become digitally connected, more services are digitised and the scientific and technical problems we ask computers to solve become more complex, our demand for computing power will continue to grow. AI will accelerate that demand.
There are genuine questions about how many data centres Australia needs, where they should be located and how their environmental impacts should be managed. These questions deserve serious answers, but a blanket "no" is not a serious strategy. The challenge is not in deciding whether or not new digital infrastructure will be built, but whether governments ensure it is developed and deployed in ways that serve the public rather than narrow commercial or political interests.
If Australia refuses to build data centres, global demand for computing power will not disappear. The infrastructure is likely to be built elsewhere, potentially in countries with weaker environmental standards, weaker labour protections and less democratic oversight. Australians will consume the services they provide while having no influence over the environmental and social impacts. Too often, environmental debates treat saying “no” to a project as though it makes the impact disappear, but in most cases demand remains and the impact simply shifts somewhere else.
Do we now allow our failure to build enough clean energy to become the justification for rejecting data centres; or will we transition to a smarter future that embraces and regulates the computing capacity that will help shape the future?
The bargain
WePlanet Australia believes Australia should actively support the development of data centres and AI infrastructure here, but that support should come with conditions.
New large data centres should be required to help deliver additional clean energy, not only to meet their own growing electricity demand but to add clean electricity to the wider grid. Local households and existing businesses should not be left competing for limited electricity supply or paying higher bills because major new industrial users arrive without contributing to the energy infrastructure they need.
The Albanese government’s proposal to require new data centres to add more electricity to the grid than they consume is therefore a welcome principle. However, we also need to be realistic about how long major clean energy projects take to build.
Renewable energy projects, transmission infrastructure, storage and firming require land, grid connections and planning approvals, and take years to develop. If the legislative bans on nuclear power plants were lifted today, nuclear energy could provide clean energy by the late 2030s at the earliest.
This is the consequence of decades of poor energy policy and delay from across the political spectrum — Labor and the Greens have dogmatically opposed nuclear energy despite its proven ability to provide low-emissions electricity, while the Coalition downplayed the urgency of the transition away from fossil fuels, delaying wind, solar and battery projects. Australia has known for decades that electricity demand would grow as we electrified transport, industry and other parts of the economy, yet we have failed to build enough clean energy and supporting infrastructure ahead of that demand.
Demanding that every new data facility operates on newly-built clean energy from its first day, regardless of whether governments can approve and connect that generation in time, risks Australia effectively locking itself out of this and other new industries because our political system failed to build the energy system they require.
Rather than paying the price for past political inaction, new data centres should be held to reasonable, transparent and time-limited pathways to deliver their clean energy commitments; with clear milestones, public reporting and consequences for failing to deliver.
This bargain also requires change from governments and established environmental organisations. If we are going to demand enormous amounts of additional clean electricity from technology companies, Australia needs to streamline the pathways to deployment and should allow them to consider all clean energy technologies. That means establishing clear go and no-go zones for energy projects, and lifting the federal prohibition on nuclear energy
The bargain is straightforward. We will actively support the digital infrastructure Australia needs and provide a realistic timeframe for delivering new clean energy. In return, data centre developers must bring additional clean energy, pay their fair share of the infrastructure they require and operate transparently.
Why Australia should build the digital future here
In addition to regulating their energy use, building data centres in Australia gives us data sovereignty. There is no better way to ensure our data is handled in line with our expectations—with penalties for misuse—than to keep it in Australia. Building the infrastructure here also reduces latency in accessing data, benefiting Australian individuals and helping our businesses be globally competitive.
Our decision will reflect whether we see data centres as a service for us to consume without regard for the consequences, or an opportunity to shape the future in line with our democratic principles.
We should not ration the digital future or outsource it. We should build it here, power it cleanly and ensure it delivers for Australians.
Ultimately, this debate is not about whether Australia embraces technology or rejects it. It is about whether we shape AI and digital infrastructure to serve democratic societies, accelerate environmental progress and improve human lives or leave those decisions to others. Data centres are simply the physical foundation of that choice.