Escape the local electricity shortage and protests! US tech giants revealed to be collectively moving to Australia to lay out AI data centers

The Zhitong Finance App learned that according to Australian data center operator AirTrunk Operating Pty Ltd, US tech giants are looking overseas due to growing local opposition. With its green grid advantages and geographical location close to Asia, Australia has become a popular candidate for the construction of data centers.

Sabooh Whitelaw (Sabooh Whitelaw), vice president of energy and utilities at AirTrunk, said that in the past six to eight months, many US technology companies, including Google (GOOGL.US), Apple (AAPL.US), Meta (META.US), Amazon (AMZN.US), and Microsoft (MSFT.US), have shown strong interest in setting up data centers in Australia far exceeding expectations.

In an interview, she stated, “Australia has advantages such as political stability, abundant renewable energy, and sufficient land resources, and is close to major Asian population centers.” She anticipates that these requirements will translate into concrete investment commitments and substantial project implementation in the coming months and years.

Google, Apple, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft have yet to respond immediately to the above news.

Currently, the artificial intelligence (AI) boom in the US is facing a tight power supply situation in the existing data center market. At the same time, concerns about the impact of data centers on household electricity bills and the environment are causing increasingly intense political controversy. From New York to Seattle, several projects were halted for a while due to grid and water consumption issues.

Australia, on the other hand, is counting on this wave of data center construction to provide financial support for the country's renewable energy transition. According to the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the relevant investment scale is expected to reach 150 billion Australian dollars (about 108 billion US dollars) by 2030. As old coal-fired power plants are gradually decommissioned, the Australian Government is planning to introduce national standards, which may require large data centers to support the construction of their own power generation facilities.

According to forecasts by Australian energy market operators, the electricity consumption of AI data centers will rise from the current 3% to 13% of the country's total electricity consumption by the 2035-2036 fiscal year. However, data center power demand may be growing faster than the construction progress of new energy infrastructure, putting pressure on power supply.

Although Australia has yet to experience a public backlash as fierce as in the US, opposition is already beginning to emerge. Activists in NSW have called for an urgent suspension of data center expansion; a Tasmanian petition to suspend construction has received more than 10,000 signatures and prompted Parliament to launch related investigations.

Also, according to data from Australian energy market operators, in the second quarter of this year, about 84% of the 9 gigawatts of proposed data center capacity applied for transmission and grid connection in Australia's main grid were still in the application stage, and no projects have entered the operation stage yet.

Whitelaw pointed out that if grid access and approval continue to lag behind, demand will grow faster than construction progress, and Australian data center projects may face the risk of being delayed.