Australia’s AI future depends on gas

Australia’s future prosperity, security and global relevance increasingly depend on our ability to compete in Artificial Intelligence (AI), advanced computing and the digital economy. These industries are no longer peripheral; they are foundational. They underpin national security, economic productivity, advanced manufacturing, defence capability, health systems and the operation of almost every piece of critical infrastructure Australians rely on each day. At the heart of this digital future sits data centres. They are the physical backbone of AI, cloud computing and high-performance computing. Without them, there is no AI economy. Without sovereign data centres on Australian soil, there is no digital sovereignty, no control over critical data and no ability to guarantee access to essential systems in times of crisis. Australia has done remarkably well to position itself as a global leader in data centres. We now rank among the top five jurisdictions globally and second in Asia for total data-centre capacity. Sydney has emerged as the Tier-1 ‘hero zone’ data-centre hub for the Asia-Pacific region, overtaking Japan and Singapore as the preferred location for hyperscale cloud infrastructure. Hyperscalers increasingly view Australia as a mission-critical hub for regional digital services. This success has not been accidental. It reflects Australia’s political stability, strong institutions, sophisticated capital markets, deep skills base and – critically – historically reliable energy supply. But this advantage is now at serious risk. Our energy policy settings are increasingly misaligned with our technology, industry and national-security objectives. Nowhere is this more evident than in the way gas is treated in Australia’s energy debate.