Data centres must avoid the mistakes of the energy transition
Data centres are set to power Australia’s economic future, but opaque planning and old habits risk repeating old errors.
As data centres become the engine room of our digital economy, we're repeating the same infrastructure mistakes that have plagued our energy transition. But this time, we have the tools to course correct and do better.
Inside the grey, windowless buildings scattered across cities, dense racks of servers, switches and routers now power everything from critical government services and financial systems to streaming platforms and the occasional unwatchable TikTok video.
Whether the size and scale of these sites continue to increase remains an open question, especially as advances in density and cooling technologies enable more compute within smaller footprints.
What is certain, however, is that rising demand for processing will place increasing strain on local energy and water resources. These facilities require massive, uninterrupted power supplies and sophisticated cooling systems that can consume millions of litres of water annually.
