Australia tells data centres to become net power generators

Albanese draws a line on power and copyright

Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese has warned that local books, music, and journalism are not free training data and signalled a tough new stance on data centre energy use.

In a speech at the University of Sydney on Wednesday, he said any large data centre built in Australia would be required to put more electricity into the grid than it takes out. None of these measures are law yet, but they mark the clearest outline so far of how Canberra wants to shape the next wave of AI infrastructure.

The speech came two days after Anthropic and others were reported to be weighing tens of billions in data centre investment against a copyright carve-out the government had already ruled out.

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New Office of AI and national standards

Effective immediately, Albanese announced an Office of AI inside his own department.

He also flagged upcoming Australian Standards that will cover energy, water, copyright, and siting for data centres. Those standards are due to go to National Cabinet next month, with legislation only targeted for introduction early next year.

Nothing announced on Wednesday is yet binding: the Office of AI is an executive creation, and the standards framework still needs political sign-off.

Data centres as “net-generators, not net-users”

Albanese’s energy obligation for large data centres was the sharpest policy signal 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 no costs land on homes or businesses
• Put at least as much energy into the grid as they take out of it

“To be net-generators, not net-users,” Albanese said.

In practice, that means funding new renewable generation and firming rather than joining a queue for existing capacity. The article notes this is a heavier ask than anything hyperscalers face in Europe or the US, where grids are already stressed by connection requests.

Water and “the sunniest and the driest” continent

Water usage drew similar attention. Data centre operators would be expected to minimise water use, maximise energy efficiency, and pay for any additional water infrastructure they require.

Albanese described Australia as both the sunniest and the driest continent, framing water as a core constraint on expansion.

“Anything less, is theft”: copyright rhetoric without a mechanism

On copyright, Albanese took a hard rhetorical line.

“Let me make this crystal clear: not everything produced in Australia is up for grabs,” he said. “Not at all.”

He argued that Australian writers, musicians, artists, and journalists “must retain ownership and control of their work”, and that no company should train on it without the artist’s control of its price and value.

“Anything less, is theft.”

The speech has been read as obliging AI companies to reach agreements with local artists and media before using their content, but Albanese did not specify how such control would be enforced. The attorney-general’s consultation on copyright is still open, and no enforcement mechanism was detailed.

Between announcement and law

The article emphasises the gap between announced and legislated policy.

Albanese explicitly rejected a maximal regulatory approach.

“It is not our goal to try and legislate for every possible eventuality or risk,” he said.

That stance is described as lighter touch than the rhetoric suggests, and closer to the ground Brussels has been retreating to than to the EU AI Act as drafted.

Albanese also claimed Australia “will be the first country in the world to bring these issues into a single, national framework”, a line that drew immediate pushback. Legal scholars pointed out that the EU adopted the AI Act in 2024 and built an AI Office to run it.

Mixed reactions and global context

Reaction has split along familiar lines and timelines.

Greenpeace Australia’s Joe Rafalowicz called large data facilities “water-guzzling energy vampires”, accusing the government of rolling out the red carpet while leaving them unregulated until at least 2027. Opposition Leader Angus Taylor said the new Office of AI would just create more bureaucracy.

Just hours before Albanese spoke, New York halted large data centre builds for a year, a pause Australia has chosen not to mirror. In Washington, lawmakers are still arguing over who pays when data centres raise power bills—a question Albanese says he wants settled upfront by forcing operators to fund new capacity.

Anthropic waits for the fine print

Anthropic, which told Treasurer Jim Chalmers that its A$21.6bn Australian investment depended on copyright certainty, said it respected the process and would meet the terms the government sets.

The article describes this as a company waiting for the fine print.

APRA AMCOS chief executive Dean Ormston welcomed the push for certainty but warned that the Office of AI “must seriously interrogate the numbers AI platforms are putting on the table”.

For now, the numbers are not on the table yet. Neither is the bill.