Melbourne's lord mayor has issued a stark warning that government plans to bring massive AI data centres to Australia could have devastating environmental consequences.
As tech giants race to build power-hungry AI infrastructure globally, the city's leader is questioning whether the environmental cost is worth the promised economic benefits.
The ABC reports that AI data centres require enormous amounts of electricity and water for cooling systems, potentially undermining Australia's climate commitments.
Mate, here's the uncomfortable truth about AI: every ChatGPT query, every AI image generation, every machine learning model requires massive computational power. And that power has to come from somewhere.
The federal government has been courting tech companies to build data centres in Australia, seeing it as an opportunity for jobs and economic growth. But the environmental math doesn't add up as cleanly as politicians claim.
A single large-scale AI data centre can consume as much electricity as a small city. They also require vast amounts of water for cooling - millions of litres per day. In a country already struggling with water security and renewable energy transitions, that's a significant burden.
The lord mayor's intervention puts climate reality front and centre in the AI infrastructure debate. Australia has committed to net-zero emissions by 2050 and aggressive renewable energy targets. Adding massive power-hungry data centres to the grid complicates that transition.
Proponents argue data centres will drive investment in renewable energy infrastructure. Critics say that's wishful thinking - in practice, data centres often rely on fossil fuel baseload power because they need 24/7 reliability.
The deeper question is whether Australia should be building infrastructure for AI companies that primarily benefit foreign tech giants, while local communities bear the environmental costs. It's the same pattern seen with coal exports and gas extraction - Australia provides the resources and takes the environmental hit, while profits flow offshore.
