A seagull flies towards the Sydney Opera House in Sydney on August 24, 2026. (Photo by Saeed KHAN / AFP)
Sydney: Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will seek to ban large data centres being built near schools, homes and farms when he meets with state leaders this week, according to plans seen by AFP on Monday.
Albanese's government has pledged to rush through a national artificial intelligence law, likening its response to the data centre boom to Australia's world-first teen social media ban.
The national AI law will also set rules for AI training, from copyright to security and safety, AFP was told ahead of Albanese's meeting with state leaders on Wednesday to agree on the nationwide legislation.
Australia's largest state of New South Wales has said it is assessing 26 new data centre projects worth AU$100 billion ($71.7 billion).
The state already has 90 data centres operating after construction grew 65 percent annually over the past three years.
But a proposal to build a data centre in the World Heritage-listed Blue Mountains in close proximity to a school was withdrawn in June after community outcry.
Albanese is expected to outline national minimum standards for water and energy use by data centres and rules to minimise community impact by locating data centres away from homes, schools, prime farm land or potential housing sites.
At a business dinner on Tuesday, he will argue that the data centre boom needs to maintain the support of communities.
"Hosting large-scale AI training data centres and unlocking frontier AI model training will help Australia capture a larger share of the economic value, technical capability and strategic influence of AI," Albanese is expected to say, according to an excerpt of his speech.
"We must establish conditions to attract investment in frontier AI training, ensuring AI is developed safely, securely, and in ways that respect copyright and provide control and payment to the creative sector," he will add.
US startup Anthropic has lobbied Australian officials to change copyright laws to assist the training of AI models -- prompting a backlash from media companies, musicians and other creators.
