Australia tells AI data centres to put back more power than they take out
Anthony Albanese has told the AI industry that Australian books, music, and journalism are not free training data, and that any large data centre built in the country will have to put more electricity into the grid than it draws out. Neither of those things is law yet.
The prime minister used a speech at the University of Sydney on Wednesday to announce an Office of AI inside his own department, effective immediately, plus Australian Standards covering energy, water, copyright, and siting.
It lands two days after Anthropic and others were reported to be weighing tens of billions in data centre investment against a copyright carve-out Canberra had already ruled out.
The energy obligation is the sharpest thing in the speech. Operators of the next generation of large data centres would be required to underwrite new power supply, pay their full share of grid connection so that no costs land...
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