‘Cannot let this happen’: Andrew Charlton says Australia must avoid US’ data centre mistakes

“We cannot let this happen in Australia and that’s why the prime minister moved last week to implement these tough standards.”

The context: Charlton, speaking days after a landmark speech from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese about guardrails for AI and its infrastructure, said the technology “may be the most important ... of our lifetimes”.

“We already have more than 200 data centres in Australia. Those data centres consume electricity equivalent to about 2% of our energy grid and there are projections that could grow very rapidly over the next 10 years, potentially even triple over the next 10 years,” Charlton said.

“The government has been very clear that we are implementing this world first AI data centre standard and that standard will make sure that local communities are supported, that they don’t face the negative impacts of these data centres looming over them, being too close to houses, too close to schools, making sure they don’t push up power prices for Australians, making sure they don’t consume drinking water.”

He said there is “clear evidence” energy prices have not gone up in Australia due to data centres, “but there is a risk that if we don’t manage that it can push up power prices” with some of the new large data centres consuming large amounts of energy.

Pressed on whether nuclear should be a part of the power mix offered, he said there “are no proposals from these large data centre operators for nuclear power. They are all putting proposals based on renewables”.

“These nuclear proposals do not exist. All of the data centres that are coming in are proposing to do firmed renewables that will meet their energy needs,” he said.

Also speaking on Sky News, Deputy Liberal Leader Jane Hume criticised the government over its approach to AI and said there was “very little” to Albanese’s speech.

“In fact, he only mentioned the words ‘productivity’ twice and once was to handball responsibility for productivity from AI to the treasurer. This seems to be a lost opportunity, I feel that the prime minister has missed the point. AI is a general purpose technology that is going to embed itself across the private sector, across the economy, across the nation.

“Talking about regulating AI by introducing rules for data centres is a little by like saying, ‘well, I’ve regulated the fishing industry by setting up a licensing regime for building boats’. There’s so much more to it than that.”

“Over-regulating them could, in fact, be a problem because it’s not just about setting up certainty, it’s also about alternative opportunities.”

Hume said hyperscalers like Amazon, Meta and Google are “setting up overseas but using small modular nuclear reactors and even micro modular nuclear reactors as an alternative energy source”.

What they said: Charlton also hit back at Pauline Hanson’s recent comments about Gough Whitlam’s ending of the White Australia policy and her concerns about migrants refusing to assimilate.

“Australia is a multicultural country,” Charlton said.

“Waves of migrants have added a huge amount to our country and I just think it’s incredibly divisive to be saying that some groups should be here and suggest that other groups shouldn’t be here,” he said.

“That’s divisive and importantly I just don’t think it takes us anywhere as a nation. It doesn’t address any of the real challenges that we have in this country, it’s not building new homes, it’s not helping people with cost of living, it’s not reforming our tax system.”

Hume also responded to Hanson’s comments, saying she condemned the comments.

“I think that they were unnecessary, they were divisive, they were inflammatory and they were totally unAustralian,” she said.

“We have had a proud history of multiculturalism; we’re a great migrant nation. We do agree in the Coalition that migration in the last four years has run out of control, the numbers have been too high, the standards have been too low. That needs to change.

“If we’re going to have the prosperous and progressive society that we have always wanted, that we’ve always enjoyed in Australia, we need to make sure that we have a migration program that’s delivering for our country that’s driving productivity, not taking away from it. But restoring a White Australia policy is not part of that,” she said.