{"id":776869,"date":"2026-07-03T17:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T17:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/776869\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T17:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T17:16:10","slug":"nsw-government-absolutely-thrilled-to-welcome-openai-until-someone-mentioned-the-terminator-films-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/776869\/","title":{"rendered":"NSW government \u2018absolutely thrilled\u2019 to welcome OpenAI … until someone mentioned the Terminator films | Technology"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NSW technology minister\u2019s office removed a reference to being \u201cabsolutely thrilled\u201d about OpenAI<\/a> opening a Sydney office after staffers joked a dystopian Skynet could be headed for the city within five years.<\/p>\n

Artificial intelligence giant OpenAI announced its first Australian office in August last year, before opening in December.<\/p>\n

In emails tabled in NSW parliament this week, and provided to Guardian Australia, staff members in technology minister Anoulack Chanthivong\u2019s office debated the phrasing of media comments welcoming the announcement.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

What started out as: \u201cThe Minns Labor government is absolutely thrilled to welcome the news that OpenAI will open its first Australian office, right here in Sydney<\/a>, later this year\u201d, subsequently had \u201cabsolutely thrilled\u201d removed, leaving just \u201cwelcomes the news\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cFine \u2013 I will roll out \u2018golden era\u2019 next time,\u201d the minister\u2019s deputy chief of staff replied after the suggested changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still convinced we\u2019re headed for a Skynet situation in the next 5 years so don\u2019t want to be on record endorsing any \u2018golden era\u2019,\u201d another staffer joked.<\/p>\n

Photograph: NSW ParliamentScreenshots of emails from NSW tech minister’s office joking about SkyNet in an amended a press release last year on OpenAI opening a Sydney office. Photograph: NSW Parliament<\/p>\n

Skynet is the Terminator film series\u2019 fictional artificial intelligence , which achieves sentience and wipes out billions of people on Judgment Day.<\/p>\n

Despite the staff members\u2019 restraint, the documents reveal how fervently members of the NSW government were courting the US tech company before its decision to open a Sydney office.<\/p>\n

In a meeting between Chanthivong and OpenAI to encourage the company to invest in NSW in June last year, key messages included that Sydney was the number one startup location in the southern hemisphere, attracting 65% of all venture capital in Australia, and was home of tech companies Atlassian, Canva and Afterpay.<\/p>\n

It was also suggested the minister should tell OpenAI that major US tech companies including Google, Microsoft, Meta, AWS and IBM, had Australian headquarters in Sydney.<\/p>\n

\u201cNSW is home to Australia\u2019s Al ecosystem,\u201d the talking points stated. \u201c45% of all Al businesses in Australia are in NSW.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MuskMusk v Altman: tech bros at war over OpenAI \u2013 The Latest<\/p>\n

Approached for comment, a spokesperson said the NSW government was committed to embracing AI opportunities \u201cwhile ensuring emerging technologies are used responsibly and in the public interest\u201d.<\/p>\n

The state government is developing a strategy around datacentre development to support the growing AI sector, but has yet to announce when it will be released.<\/p>\n

Asked in the NSW inquiry into datacentres on Thursday whether NSW was falling behind Victoria and South Australia, the environment minister, Penny Sharpe, said she was not concerned as Sydney posed a \u201chighly desirable location\u201d.<\/p>\n

State and federal governments are also balancing the push for AI investment with growing community concern over datacentres, including their impact on the environment.<\/p>\n

Datacentres typically use diesel generators when there are power outages. Documents from a May 2026 meeting revealed NSW environmental protection authority modelling showing that if all eight large datacentres in the Sydney basin ran their generators at the same time, the one-hour air pollution load would be five to six times that of all electricity generation in NSW and five to six times greater than that of all motor vehicles in NSW.<\/p>\n

\u201cCumulative impacts are critical given that, in a power outage, several [datacentres] may turn on [generator] sets,\u201d the document stated.<\/p>\n

The chief executive of Data Centres Australia, Belinda Dennett, said this was the worst-case scenario modelled and would be an extremely rare and catastrophic event.<\/p>\n

\u201cBackup generators are standby equipment, not power stations. They run mainly for brief, staggered testing, with rare emergency use, and each site\u2019s emissions are already modelled against the EPA\u2019s air quality criteria as a condition of approval,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

NSW Greens MLC, Abigail Boyd, who is chairing the state\u2019s datacentres inquiry, said the documents showed the current air impact assessments on datacentres were not robust as they underestimated hours.<\/p>\n

\u201cDatacentre loads are a key source of grid strain and volatility \u2013 blackout events are more likely with more datacentres pulling on the grid and transmission capacity,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Boyd said there could be a situation when datacentre power demand pushed customers off the network, or datacentres disconnected and were forced to use diesel generators.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a disaster waiting to happen. Particularly given the proximity of many of these projects to dense residential areas and schools.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NSW technology minister\u2019s office removed a reference to being \u201cabsolutely thrilled\u201d about OpenAI opening a Sydney office…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":776870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":["post-776869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/776870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}