AI data centres ‘one of the largest’ investment booms and also the ‘elephant in the energy room’

Assistant Minister for Science and Technology Andrew Charlton spoke at The Australian Energy Nation Forum to discuss a range of issues including AI and the debate around data centres, which have become the “elephant in the energy room”. “The data centre investment boom is one of the largest investment booms of our lifetime,” Mr Charlton said. “You have to go back to the 1880s and 1890s to find an equivalently sized infrastructure boom.”