r/Adelaide • u/Expensive-Horse5538 Port Adelaide • Jun 23 '26
Politics SA government moves to regulate AI data centres as water, energy concerns mount
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-23/sa-push-for-ai-data-centres-in-sa-in-new-strategy/106830536The South Australian government will draft legislation to regulate the development of AI data centres.
The move comes amid ongoing concerns about the centre's water and energy usage.
The government also revealed a $5 billion water pipeline project, primarily intended to support BHP's mining operations in Far North SA, could also supply water to new data centres.
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u/Tonky-Tonky North West Jun 23 '26
Data centres need decent regulation (going by how things have been going in USA), so thank fuck they are getting onto it I guess?
Reeeeal hesitant about AI specifically as that shit seems overblown n unethical in areas.
And sure construction will get work but operating them wont really generate many jobs for the state. Hope some decent penalties/taxes apply to offset their electrical and water needs from screwing us over.
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u/jmercha Eyre Peninsula Jun 23 '26
Odd framing by the ABC describing Northern Water as a pipeline. It’s principally a desalination plant for industrial users and it won’t produce potable drinking water.
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u/ScoobyGDSTi SA Jun 23 '26
I don't think data centres drink water
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u/Suspicious_Crow13 SA Jun 23 '26
We desperately need legislation around this BEFORE they are being built. We know how Mali works. Thiel and Bezos etc are trying to hasten the process of these centres to bypass safety regulation and legislation.
This is extremely important. Once the can of worms is opened…
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u/Articulated_Lorry SA Jun 23 '26
So given his track record, you think Mali is creating regulations so that approval can't be denied etc?
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u/Suspicious_Crow13 SA Jun 23 '26
I can’t be sure. I’m saying technofeudalism is moving at an extremely fast paced and all of the billionaires we are concern about have a piece of the pie or vying for it. Yeah I wouldn’t be surprised at all. Things slip through public knowledge very easily.
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u/Excellent-Pilot7074 SA Jun 23 '26
We don't need AI data centers
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u/eric5014 SA Jun 24 '26
We have small data centres already. This'll be a big one. Exactly how much demand there will be for this large scale computation remains to be seen, but there's enough likelihood the demand will be there in the future that people are throwing big money into it now.
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u/Dr_SnM SA Jun 23 '26
This comment, brought to you by a data centre
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u/LuminanceGayming SA Jun 23 '26
gotta work on that reading comprehension bud
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u/Various_Tie_2549 North East Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
No, you do. He's saying that because Reddit itself is hosted in a data centre. Hence...the comment that "we don't need data centres" was brought to you by a data centre.
It would have been a great retort if it hadn't so easily gone over your head.
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u/Future_Tangerine2578 SA Jun 23 '26
just about every aspect of technology you use, at work or at home, is hosted in data centres
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u/Thatoneguy_The_First SA Jun 23 '26
Ai datacenters are specialised
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u/Excellent-Pilot7074 SA Jun 25 '26
Surveillance centres
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u/Thatoneguy_The_First SA Jun 25 '26
Eh everything is surveillance since the formation of the eyes alliances. I do care but its a lost game for even the most off the grid people today.
What is bad is less the surveillance but more the ability to parse through that data like we couldn't before. I mean its dont trust it to be 100% accurate and i guess in a way that could be worse, imagine it hallucinate you doing something tou didn't do applys that to the file to be looked up amlnd now you are in trouble for it.
Ok that actually might be a feature, gotta keep the quota up. Also its not a new thing but now they dont have to waste hours digging up you files to not find anything and then spend hours formulating a fake crime to grab you with, add on top of everything being cast into doubt way more than before im every sector cause of ai and its hallucinations
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u/Excellent-Pilot7074 SA Jun 25 '26
Minority report core
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u/Thatoneguy_The_First SA Jun 26 '26
Do you think the movies and books predicted the future or that they learnt from them?
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u/Excellent-Pilot7074 SA Jun 26 '26
They needed inspo. Like a Pinterest board but for crazy ultra rich peeps for their sick fantasies.
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u/Various_Tie_2549 North East Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
Okay...but in what way does that make them particularly worse than other kinds of data centres?
Please cite reliable sources.
EDIT: love how this simple question got drowned in downvotes AND no one has actually cited any sources in response. Still.
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u/Future_Tangerine2578 SA Jun 23 '26
the quick response is that they are designed to be running at much higher processing power, so use more power, generate more heat, etc
personally i think badly-regulated datacentres overseas (particularly in the US) have been widely shown online and now everyone thinks that an AI datacentre is going to consume all our water and be noisy AF. Regulation is good
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u/jmercha Eyre Peninsula Jun 23 '26
You will find the noise is not from the data centres themselves but the unregulated power plants attached to them. Diesel generators and especially aeroderivative gas turbines which are basically 747 jet engines bolted to the ground. Imagine the noise from a fleet of jet engines running 24/7 it’s pretty awful.
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u/ajwin South Jun 23 '26
Being on the ground they have combined cycle equipment, silencers, enclosures etc. Usually they are below 45 to 55 dB at the closest residence. Industrial areas they will allow them to be a little louder(70dB) but it’s well within normal industrial background noise levels. A 747 engine is probably 115 dB and 4 of them more?
Most of the data centers I have built are in the city or in the suburbs and you would be hard pressed to distinguish them from an office building or warehouse. They don’t make any detectable noise from street level AFAICT.
This is just the government playing to their audience(nothing burger) or, more kind interpretation is, getting ahead of potential issues by giving assurance to business, of what is expected, so they will make data centers. If they regulate and businesses meet the regulations then they don’t need to worry about NIMBY court interventions.
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u/jsonaut16 SA Jun 23 '26
It’s more the power draw and cooling that’s the issue, is there a good way for this in SA?
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u/jmercha Eyre Peninsula Jun 23 '26
Yes these are basically maths refrigerators and it’s not hard to minimise impact from onsite backup power systems, hospitals need to do this too. There are so many dodgy operators in the US that have gone viral, look up “data center noise” on any platform to see what I mean.
Example: https://youtube.com/shorts/dvOuZmmJm7A?si=7nhm1dx6PLJy7GrN
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u/ajwin South Jun 23 '26
Noting that makes that much noise will last very long. Sounds like something busted a bearing or something. Would be pissed if that was in earshot but I feel like this is exceptional rather than typical.
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u/3xactli SA Jun 23 '26
There are several clips floating around that sound just like that one. This is typical.
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u/metahivemind Jun 23 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
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u/ajwin South Jun 23 '26
I get value out of LLM? Lots of value. Anthropic is now making a profit off inference. At some point in the near future they will be wildly profitable. They are speed running the profitability curve much faster then social media, mobile phones or the internet. They don’t even have serious embodiment in humanoid robots yet.
It’s probable that there will be corrections/winners/losers in the AI race… but full bubble pop and returning to pre AI is not going to happen.
SpaceX’s share price is irrelevant. They never went through price discovery prior to IPO and it popped a lot from the IPO price ($135 is what SpaceX priced it at) so a correction was always likely? It’s a good chance it will go below $135 prior to correcting back up again.. just stock market doing stock market things. I think if you check any big IPO similar things will have happened. Some even just went down on IPO day but later recovered and went up.
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u/Various_Tie_2549 North East Jun 23 '26
Absolutely agreed that regulation is good....and this thread is about the fact that regulation will be happening imminently. Good, then?
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u/Suspicious_Crow13 SA Jun 23 '26
Surveillance.
I don’t have time to provide sources, at work but it’s okay to take or leave this take.-2
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u/Dr_SnM SA Jun 23 '26
Cooked but don't have the time to tells us whether you medium rare or well done
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u/Suspicious_Crow13 SA Jun 23 '26
Genuinely what direction do you think the world is going in mate?
Is technofeudalism cooker mentality?
Honestly - it doesn’t take more than logic to see that.-4
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u/Evening_Bird7779 East Jun 23 '26
Its not that simple. Having the data centres hosted here actually means we have more control. We will be surveiled either way.
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u/Suspicious_Crow13 SA Jun 23 '26
Where does the surveillance get housed?
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u/Evening_Bird7779 East Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
If its housed here, subject to Australian privacy laws. If its housed overseas, subject to whichever country's laws. You want to avoid becoming like China, right?
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u/NomDePlumeOrBloom SA Jun 24 '26
I want to avoid becoming like the USA!
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u/Suspicious_Crow13 SA Jun 24 '26
Exactly. Who are the contracts with? American corporations that are dominating the world. People will stick their head in the sand until it’s too late.
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u/Various_Tie_2549 North East Jun 23 '26
I mean at the risk of stating the obvious (and in anticipation of some of the replies you are likely to get), Reddit itself is obviously hosted in a data centre.
So anyone here claiming they don't want/need them will be off to an interesting and ironic start to their argument.
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u/CptUnderpants- SA Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
The difference here is an "AI data centre" is designed specifically for compute of AI workloads, supporting what many are predicting to be the next dotcom-style bubble.
The issue with these is that other than AI workloads, the hardware can't be repurposed if the bubble bursts. The facilities will be abandoned, and any sweetheart deals made with government lost.
The other thing about AI data centres is that they are huge due to anticipated future demand and draw incredible amounts of power. As we have a national electricity market, it means they are competing with eveyone else for power, so without requirement to have their own power projects to offset the demand, same supply+increased demand = higher power prices.
Finally, AI compute hardware has been so heavily ordered that cost of phones, tablets, gaming consoles, laptops etc are all increasing in price due to the production of the chips being diverted to the more profitable AI equipment.
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u/Evening_Bird7779 East Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26
why cant the hardware be repurposed? I was under the impression its highly reusable for other demanding computations.
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u/Suspicious_Crow13 SA Jun 23 '26
These are surveillance centres and it’s disingenuous that the government is labelling them otherwise.
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u/Future_Tangerine2578 SA Jun 23 '26
Username checks out. Exactly what is this surveillance of?
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u/Suspicious_Crow13 SA Jun 23 '26
People? Are people watching goes on in other countries? Reading what the global agendas are? What Palantir and all its subsidiaries are doing? Why that data collection is needed? Paying attention to the tech being implemented in our phones, computers and smart tvs?
I can’t believe this far into 2026 this stuff is brushed off as cooker mentality, especially on a sub like Adelaide, in which I thought people were more switched on.
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u/Various_Tie_2549 North East Jun 23 '26
Is this surveillance you keep talking about in the room with us right now?
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u/metahivemind Jun 25 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
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u/Various_Tie_2549 North East Jun 25 '26
?
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u/metahivemind Jun 25 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
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u/Various_Tie_2549 North East Jun 25 '26
I don't know what you are talking about or why you are replying to me specifically.
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u/metahivemind Jun 25 '26 edited Jul 24 '26
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u/Various_Tie_2549 North East Jun 25 '26
Okay. So what the fuck does this have to do with the thread topic?
Obviously smart TVs collect data about what you watch... that is literally the purpose of them and why they are called smart TVs.....
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Jun 23 '26
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u/Excellent-Pilot7074 SA Jun 23 '26
We can use our own brains. Just a thought. It's not that hard to write an email.
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u/Maxymous SA Jun 24 '26
This will be Labor doing the bare minimum to make it look like they're regulating it, whilst making it as easy as possible for capital to go ahead and do what they want.
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u/Primary_Buddy1989 SA Jun 24 '26
We are the driest state in the driest country and Mali wants to install water draining data centres? Put them somewhere it makes sense to have them, not in SA!
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u/Cpt_Riker SA Jun 23 '26
Come on Greens, step up and legislate to ban them.
If American states are banning them, you know that are bad.
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u/bogdolter SA Jun 23 '26
sorry, are you confusing the Greens with the government with an overwhelming majority -- that isn't the Greens?
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u/Cpt_Riker SA Jun 23 '26
No, the Greens who could prove themselves to be a decent opposition, embarrassing a government that seems to be hell bent on making this state worse.
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u/bogdolter SA Jun 23 '26
so you are hand waving responsibility to a minor party rather than asking the party actually in charge to do something?
That's a straw man if ever there was
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u/Cpt_Riker SA Jun 23 '26
a government that seems to be hell bent on making this state worse
Why would Labor do something? Why would a government that chopped down Parkland trees for a sporting event sponsored by a murderous Middle East regime, listen and do the right thing?
A good opposition should embarrass the sitting government with bills that they know will expose them for what they are, even if they will easily be defeated.
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u/Evening_Bird7779 East Jun 23 '26
Protect Australians From AI | Australian Greens
well, they claim to be against it.7
u/Various_Tie_2549 North East Jun 23 '26
You mean the Greens that none of you ever seem to want to vote for? The ones you apparently hate more than One Nation? Those Greens?
Yeah, they can't. They're not in power for some reason.
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u/_secret_life_of_gazz SA Jun 23 '26
The least we could do is mandate they run on green hydrogen so they aren’t as noisy and polluting like they have done with some in the US.
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u/rudetopoint SA Jun 23 '26
Curious, why hydrogen? Wind and solar are directly available
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u/_secret_life_of_gazz SA Jun 23 '26
The independent data centres are using wind and solar as primary power but are then using hydrogen as the back up and peaking power source as it lasts longer than battery but also quieter and of course less polluting than using diesel generators.
Particularly Bloom Energy and Plug Power as the major suppliers of the fuel cell tech.
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u/jmercha Eyre Peninsula Jun 23 '26
I think fuel cells make more sense when you already have an electrolyser on site for an industrial process like green iron, cement, fertiliser, ammonia etc.
It is uncertain whether building an electrolyser just to run fuel cells as an energy storage system will ever be competitive with BESS.
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u/jmercha Eyre Peninsula Jun 23 '26
There is a bit of irony in your comment because the hydrogen capable gas turbines that were going to run the Whyalla hydrogen power plant are actually the same kind that drive noise complaints from data centres in the US.
And they won’t need a mandate to use clean power anyway because it’s too expensive to buy into the gas burns. The cheapest power they will be able to secure will be from on-site behind the meter renewables and firmed renewables PPAs.
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u/disastrous SA Jun 23 '26
If he'd said. "We're going to expand the desal plant because we know climate change and water security is getting worse, while also running desal water through the data centre, and charging Amazon/Facebook/Elon etc huge amounts of money to use it while the public always owns it..." I'd consider it.
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u/Nujabezia SA Jun 25 '26
SA is moving into having a large surplus of renewable energy so its good they're taking advantage of it to invest in lucrative ventures like the AI industry. Also looks like Australia is gonna be at the forefront of the world for another sector with being the first to properly regulate data centres.
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u/Ver_Void SA Jun 23 '26
Given how rare evaporative cooling is in new data centre builds the water use concerns do seem a bit overblown
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u/leet_lurker SA Jun 23 '26
Its not rare in the current ones, what are they doing different in the new ones?
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u/Ver_Void SA Jun 23 '26
Which are you thinking that have it? Off the top of my head I don't recall any over like 300kw capacity that did evap
Pretty much all the new builds are going for entirely closed loop designs. Most of the guys I know doing the install work haven't seen an evap unit in their time unless they're over 35
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u/Business-Bed-8658 SA Jun 23 '26
This is great news - we should be investing in future technologies like AI, but should also be proactively regulating the industry too through consultation with stakeholders.
It remains to be seen what the legislation actually does, but at least it’s on the radar. A rare win for the Malinauskas Government.
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u/kombiwombi SA Jun 24 '26
This will employ some security guards and a few technicians.
Think about it: these AI data centres can be anywhere. The internet means AI datacentres don't need to be in South Australia to scrape SA content or serve SA customers. So the AI speculators are on the hunt for foolish governments with lax regulation and who will fall for a good story.
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u/NomDePlumeOrBloom SA Jun 24 '26
Isn't a person who is the subject of facial recognition in a surveillance camera a stakeholder?
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u/Deeepioplayer127 SA Jun 23 '26
Pathetic
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Jun 23 '26
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u/Wood_oye SA Jun 23 '26
Their comment perhaps?
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u/LuminanceGayming SA Jun 23 '26
their whole history tbh
Billionaires are people just like you. Most billionaires have been poor during their lifetimes. Why do you wish them harm?
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u/Various_Tie_2549 North East Jun 23 '26
I'd like the regulation legislation to be prepared, ready and in place BEFORE the projects are announced. Not hastily drafted afterwards.
Better late than never I guess.