The new world gold rush

On the flight to Melbourne, I did some reading on the city’s history. Standing at the Australian debut of Data Center World Summit, the parallel was hard to shake. The room felt like Victoria in 1851: the new gold rush.

I had plenty of discussions with people across various industries, all drawn to the capability AI — and the data centres hosting it – could provide Australia.

The Hon Anthony Carbines, Victoria’s first Minister for Artificial Intelligence and the Digital Economy, set the tone early. His key message was the same one we’re hearing from every other state: we are open for business … if you have the blessing of the people.

I think my colleagues in Banksia will have their hands full in Victoria.

Three things stayed with me.

• Australia’s export is intelligence. The pitch was that we’ll export compute to power the fastest-growing region in the world — processing capacity instead of iron ore.
• Hosting critical infrastructure provides influence. That’s real leverage for a middle power. Influence accrues to trusted infrastructure, not cheap infrastructure.
• Social licence will be AI expansion’s biggest battleground. Not planning approval. Not grid connection. And barely two weeks after the summit, Carbines’ warning proved prescient. Facing growing community concern around data centre expansion, the Victorian Government announced new rules covering where data centres could be built and how they would use power and water. The message was fairly clear: having the capital and an approved site won’t be enough if you lose the community along the way.

Social licence isn’t something obtained after approval through a clear, concise communications plan. It has to be designed in from the start — explaining what communities get in return, addressing concerns before they harden and giving governments confidence they can support investment without wearing the political cost. Get that wrong and projects won’t just face bad headlines; they’ll be fought over for years.

That’s where our offices across the eastern seaboard come into play.

There’s clearly an uphill battle for data centres and AI to secure money, power and water. But the harder contest may be convincing the public and government that the enormous resources required to power the AI boom are worth it.

The first gold rush was a race to secure the resource. This one will also be a race to secure acceptance.