00:01So New South Wales Parliament released a tranche of emails from within New South Wales Government
00:07about interactions that the various parts of the government had been having with AI companies and data centre companies.
00:14Those are actually kind of different because while many of us would know major tech companies who do AI,
00:19whether it's OpenAI, Meta, Google, Anthropic,
00:23there's also a number of companies that are Australian owned that actually build the physical infrastructure in Australia.
00:29Earlier this year, Anthropic's US executive was making a visit to Australia
00:35where they ended up signing a MOU, a Memorandum of Understanding, with the Australian Government saying,
00:41essentially we would love to put more of our, you know, do more work here,
00:46put more of our data centres here within the kind of conditions that you would like.
00:50It's a kind of very high level document saying, you know, we're into it, we'll start looking into it.
00:54But prior to that, emails that I got from inside the New South Wales Government
01:00shows that we got a little bit more detail about exactly what they were interested in asking for,
01:05specifically this number of five gigawatts of AI training computer capacity in New South Wales alone.
01:14And that's kind of the first time that I think we've heard a figure like that to do with the
01:17state
01:18that gives us some insight into exactly what they want to do and put in Australia.
01:22So break down that number for us. Why is that such a significant amount?
01:27Well, there's numbers out today from Data Centres Australia, which is a lobby group representing data centres,
01:33predictably, saying that currently Australia has 1.6 gigawatts in Australia in total.
01:42This ask from Anthropic, which I should say was a very preliminary discussion.
01:48It's been some months since then, but suggested they wanted up to five gigawatts.
01:54So, you know, my maths isn't great, but that's more than three times that, potentially in one state alone.
02:00Now, of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that they would get that much.
02:03Perhaps if they got more in New South Wales, they wouldn't get as much elsewhere.
02:06But clearly we can kind of see from that that this company is having discussions with government,
02:11suggesting that they are really interested potentially in making serious investments in Australia.
02:17That would mean some pretty serious infrastructure build outs.
02:21You know, again, over what timeframe? We don't know.
02:24These companies, you know, are dealing with the here and now, but they're also probably trying to think, you know,
02:28years, even a decade in advance.
02:31This stuff building out takes a long time. So, you know, I'm sure they're all trying to figure out how
02:35to get their ducks in a row.
02:37But still that that number is a enormous amount that kind of lets us understand that we've been hearing that
02:44data centre companies,
02:46AI companies want to come to Australia. They want to build up this capacity.
02:50But the amount that they are potentially asking for is such a large amount.
02:54It's not just a big thing for them. It's a big thing for Australians, for politicians, for people who are
02:59building these things out to be like,
03:01let alone do we want it, but can we even give them that much even if we really want to
03:06go for it?
03:06Yeah. You know, Cam, there's been a lot of discussions about the data centres
03:11and, of course, the kind of resources they would need, what kind of a strain that would be on Australia's
03:18own infrastructure and resources as well.
03:20But as well, they are bringing in some investment as well.
03:23And this is a hot topic that's going to be discussed in the National Cabinet today.
03:27What are you expecting to come out of that?
03:29Yeah, so National Cabinet today was looking at these, what the Albanese government calls its Australian standards.
03:37This came out of a speech that the Prime Minister gave about a month ago where he said that we
03:42want to get major AI companies to come to Australia,
03:45to invest here, to, you know, employ people here.
03:48But also we realise that we don't want a kind of US-style backlash that you're seeing to the data
03:54centres being built across that country.
03:56And so, you know, they talk about the idea of social licence.
03:59How do we, you know, allow or set the parameters for building out this kind of infrastructure in a way
04:06that Australians feel like they're not getting taken advantage of,
04:09but they're benefiting from?
04:11And that, what his, you know, recipe for that included a number of things.
04:15But the two things that are coming up at National Cabinet today are about energy and water,
04:21because, you know, those are things that the state and federal governments have to come to some agreement on.
04:27We understand that, you know, some of the states, Queensland, Northern Territory,
04:30are not keen on suggestions that all data centres would have to come with a commensurate amount of renewable energy.
04:39So, you come on in, you say, we want this much power, you've then got to source that much renewable
04:44energy yourself.
04:45We don't know what the outcome of that is.
04:47But that is like one of the main kind of planks of this idea that the government says,
04:52if we do this right, we think that we can have it so that Australians feel comfortable and happy that
04:57these companies are coming here and setting up their infrastructure.
05:00Thank you very much, John.
