Jul 16, 2026 – 5.10pmAustralia’s data centre boom is creating a misleading impression of the health of the broader economy, disguising weakening business investment across other sectors while delivering a smaller boost to GDP growth than the headline figures suggest.The scale of the surge is evident in the national accounts, which show capital spending on machinery and equipment by businesses in the IT sector has increased more than thirteenfold over the past three years, reaching $5.2 billion in the March quarter alone.Subscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe.Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? Fetching latest articles
Australia’s AI boom is not what it seems
Booming data centre spending creates a misleading impression of the economy’s heath, disguising soft investment and delivering less of a boost to GDP than first thought.
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