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 on homes or businesses, and put at least as much energy into the grid as they take out of it.
“To be net-generators, not net-users,” Albanese said. That means funding new renewable generation and firming rather than joining a queue for someone else’s electrons, a heavier ask than anything hyperscalers face in Europe or the US, where grids are already buckling under connection requests.The 💜 of EU techThe latest rumblings from the EU tech scene, a story from our wise ol' founder Boris, and some questionable AI art. It's free, every week, in your inbox. Sign up now!
