Good morning CVELU,

Technology waits for no one. And as we march into the brave new world of the future one commodity is going to be more important than any other: Information.

Be it real intelligence we gather on potential foreign threats or the quantity and quality of data that feeds artificial intelligence, knowledge is power.

And in an increasingly unstable world where there is a race to accumulate as much knowledge as possible — much as great nations raced to gobble up the globe in previous centuries — Australia cannot afford to be left behind.

The good news is that we have the capability and the capacity to be a world leader in AI and data collection.

The bad news is that we are being held back because of planning approval delays and other red tape.

Experts warn that Australia is at risk of missing out on our share of economic opportunities worth $100 trillion globally because it takes us twice as long to build data centres here as it does overseas.

These centres require huge amounts of electricity, water and space — something Australia is strategically well placed to capitalise on and attract private and government sector investment from both here and abroad.

For example as a Five Eyes partner — our critical intelligence-sharing agreement with the US, UK, Canada and New Zealand — there is enormous potential for Australia to be used as a destination for those security and intelligence agencies to securely train their AI models here, just as Singapore is already doing here.

But at the moment approvals to get a data centre built takes around four years in Australia compared to just two years overseas.

In a sector where speed is of the essence, when technologies transform so rapidly and every failure to be on the cutting edge is effectively a step backwards, this is clearly unacceptable.

UNSW Professor Ian Langford says there is $350 billion of private equity up for grabs. Meanwhile this year alone, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta will outlay an estimated $535 billion into data centres investment, with Australia already losing to competitors in the region. 

Assistant Minister for Science, Technology and the Digital Economy Andrew Charlton rightly says that data centres are the “engine of the modern economy”. 

So let’s get that motor running.