'Everything is harder and slower here': IREN founder blasts Australia's AI red tape
If Australia wants to compete in AI, it needs more computing power — but securing it is unnecessarily hard, warns IREN founder Daniel Roberts.
Australia will continue to lag in artificial intelligence unless it makes it easier for companies to build data centres, warns IREN co-founder Daniel Roberts.
Despite IREN being founded by two Australians and headquartered in Sydney, none of its Bitcoin mining or AI data centre facilities are located in the country — and not for lack of interest, Roberts told Capital Brief.
"Australia is not too small to matter, it's everything to me and my kids and I have a strong vested interest in it," Roberts said. "But the reality is [that] Australia is slow to adapt and we've seen this in every element of our business. Everything is harder and slower here."
IREN builds and operates high-powered data centres that run exclusively on cheap, green energy. The Nasdaq-listed company, originally called Iris Energy, focused solely on Bitcoin mining until last year, when it bought $40 million worth of Nvidia chips and added AI development capabilities to its facilities.
