{"id":802715,"date":"2026-07-15T22:42:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T22:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/802715\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T22:42:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T22:42:15","slug":"albaneses-ai-blueprint-sparks-calls-for-datacentre-moratorium-until-new-regulations-in-place-datacentres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/802715\/","title":{"rendered":"Albanese\u2019s AI blueprint sparks calls for datacentre moratorium until new regulations in place | Datacentres"},"content":{"rendered":"

Environmental and community groups have called for a pause on datacentre development until new regulations are in place after Anthony Albanese<\/a> promised \u201cgreater clarity and speed\u201d over their approval.<\/p>\n

In his speech on artificial intelligence<\/a> at the University of Sydney on Wednesday, the prime minister said Australia would create a legal obligation for large-scale datacentres to underwrite new power supply, pay their full share of grid connection and add as much energy to the grid as they take out of it.<\/p>\n

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The prime minister noted all three obligations \u201ctake in every level of government and their overlapping powers\u201d but said the national standards would ensure governments were on the same page.<\/p>\n

Deanna D\u2019Alessandro, professor and director of the Net Zero Institute at the University of Sydney, said up until now the approach to datacentre regulation has been fragmented.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe commonwealth is focused on sovereign digital capability, productivity, critical infrastructure resilience and decarbonisation,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cStates are balancing economic growth with energy, water and regional development challenges. Local councils are dealing with the immediate impacts on land use, housing, traffic, amenity and community expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The challenge, she said, is coordinating priorities to ensure economic benefits are captured while social licence is maintained.<\/p>\n

All state and territory ministers at energy and climate change ministerial council meetings are required to agree to the new standards before their adoption.<\/p>\n

Although the majority of datacentres in Australia are in New South Wales and Victoria, at the May meeting Queensland was the single holdout<\/a> on the proposal.<\/p>\n

The Climate Council has warned Queensland\u2019s reluctance could lead to a \u201cstate-by-state race to the bottom\u201d on datacentre expansion.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe AI-driven surge in datacentres will have a profound effect on our energy system, and unchecked, this growth could mean soaring prices and rampant climate pollution,\u201d the Climate Council chief, Amanda McKenzie, said. \u201cThe government must adequately regulate datacentre growth to ensure it occurs in the best interests of Australians.\u201d<\/p>\n

The peak organisation for the sector, Data Centres Australia, has previously pushed back against suggestions operators should be 100% renewables powered. The chief executive, Belinda Dennett, told a NSW inquiry in May there was a desire to get to 100% but that trying \u201cto match a renewable energy project timing and a datacentre timing is difficult\u201d.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, Dennett said the devil will be in the detail but largely agreed with the prime minister\u2019s position.<\/p>\n

Moratorium calls continue<\/p>\n

The new rules leave communities already facing datacentre development proposals with a level of uncertainty.<\/p>\n

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Five datacentres are planned<\/a> for the northern Sydney suburb of Lane Cove and would take up 40% of its industrial land, the Lane Cove Responsible Planning Group has warned. Earlier this month, it joined other community groups in calling for a moratorium on new datacentre development until stronger protections are in place.<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s Sasha Titchkosky told Guardian Australia she welcomed the prime minister\u2019s speech as a recognition of the need for national regulation and supports a national body to assess the power, water and infrastructure needs of the \u201chighly extractive\u201d industry.<\/p>\n

But the announcement made a moratorium on current proposals even more necessary, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere shouldn\u2019t be any new approvals given until this regulatory framework is established,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\"AnthonyAnthony Albanese says he wants to do AI \u2018the Australian way\u2019 \u2013 video<\/p>\n

This week, the New York governor, Kathy Hochul, announced a one-year moratorium on hyperscale datacentre approvals<\/a> in the US state.<\/p>\n

The Greens\u2019 communications spokesperson, Sarah Hanson Young, said Australia should have a similar moratorium on large datacentre development until the right rules are in place on energy, water use and environmental and community impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s announcement \u2026 is welcome, but with more than 90 datacentres already in the pipeline we cannot allow a free-for-all in the meantime,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Environmental and community groups have called for a pause on datacentre development until new regulations are in place…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":776870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-802715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802715","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=802715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802715\/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=802715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}