Beyond Trump’s corruption, reckless war in the Middle East and the soaring cost of living, there’s another frustration bubbling beneath the surface, the unchecked expansion of AI data centres. As Politico in the US reported overnight, “the big winners” in the mid-terms were the candidates who campaigned against data centres.
Fri 6 Nov 2026 01.00 AEDT
Photo: Conlan Houston/Flickr
For the first time in a long time, there’s a sense of hope in global politics.
A ‘blue tsunami’ has swept across the United States, with Democrats flipping traditionally Republican strongholds in both the House and Senate. After two years of Trump’s authoritarianism, corruption and chaos, it feels like sanity is finally returning to American politics. And it’s a pretty great feeling.
But it’s also got me thinking about what’s driving this political shift. Beyond Trump’s corruption, reckless war in the Middle East and the soaring cost of living, there’s another frustration bubbling beneath the surface: the unchecked expansion of AI data centres.
As Politico in the US reported overnight, “the big winners” in the midterms were the candidates who campaigned against data centres: Jon Ossoff (Georgia), Sherrod Brown (Ohio) and Abdul El-Sayed (Michigan).
“I will always be on your side – always. I do not work for the utility companies. I do not work for data centers. I do not work for Wall Street. I work for you. I work for Ohio,” Brown said in his victory speech on Tuesday night.
Across the US, unregulated data centres are disrupting communities and draining precious resources. Residents are asking what they actually get in return for hosting these enormous data mining factories in their backyards.
People are sick of watching their communities shoulder the costs while the profits flow to Trump’s billionaire tech mates. It’s no coincidence that data centre hotspots like Texas, Georgia and Ohio have all turned blue.
Despite Donald Trump demanding that Americans get behind the data centre boom, communities are pushing back against Big Tech, questioning who benefits from the AI gold rush and taking that anger to the ballot box.
It’s a message politicians ignore at their peril and a stark warning for Australia. It reinforces a question I’ve been asking for a while: are AI data centres worth it, and what are Australians actually getting in return?
I hear from people almost every day who are uneasy about the hyperscale data centres appearing across the country. Communities are being asked to hand over their land, water and power to some of the world’s wealthiest tech companies, yet the benefits for ordinary Australians remain remarkably difficult to identify.
Recent Capital Brief Demos polling found just 23% of Australians believe the country should lead the world in hosting data centres, while 37% oppose any further construction. Only 24% believe data centres are good for Australia’s economic development, and 44% don’t think they benefit ordinary Australians.
People want to know what their communities are getting in return, and politicians need to start listening.
We know the environmental costs of these factories are enormous. Data centres consume vast quantities of water and electricity. Sydney Water estimates existing and planned data centres across Greater Sydney could consume up to 20-25% of the city’s drinking water by 2035.
Let that sink in. A quarter of Australia’s largest city’s drinking water could go towards cooling computer servers.
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In a country as dry and drought-prone as Australia, communities are right to question whether this is an appropriate use of such a precious resource.
Then there is the electricity drainage. These facilities operate around the clock, placing enormous demands on our grids. Big Tech must build additional renewable energy capacity, actual renewables like wind and solar, not gas, and pay the full cost of the electricity it consumes. Australians shouldn’t be footing the bill for an industry they may never directly benefit from.
And the costs don’t stop at the electricity meter. The data centre building boom is competing for the materials, skilled workers and infrastructure we desperately need to build more homes. This risks driving up construction costs and inflation, putting further pressure on the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates. The result is higher mortgage repayments, rising rents and more pressure on Australians already struggling with the cost of living.
It’s hardly surprising people are pushing back. In Victoria, 79 councils have called for a moratorium on new data centre developments until proper protections are in place.
In my home state of South Australia, a community campaign is opposing a proposed data centre on prime agricultural land in the Adelaide Hills. The development would even include a gas-fired power plant. So much for the promise of renewable-powered data centres.
As chair of the Senate inquiry into AI data centres, I’ve heard directly from communities grappling with these developments. In Lane Cove, Sydney, residents faced a proposal for a data centre just 20 metres from their homes. Within days of our public hearing, the developer withdrew its application. In Footscray, Melbourne, a proposed development has also been pushed back following sustained community opposition.
These outcomes show what happens when communities organise and stand up to Big Tech. They also highlight the political risks of ignoring local concerns. Political careers can live and die by community movements; Republicans across the U.S. are feeling the consequences of taking their communities for granted and putting Big Tech first. Australia cannot afford to make the same mistake.
Australians, we’ve got to keep asking the tough questions: will these data centres pay their fair share of tax? How will we protect our art and culture from being scraped to train AI models? And what regulations will genuinely protect communities from having their energy and water siphoned off to server and bot farms?
To be clear, I’m not arguing Australia should ban data centres altogether. We need digital infrastructure, secure domestic data storage and computing capacity to support our economy and public services.
But there is a fundamental difference between building infrastructure Australians need and allowing big US tech companies to establish enormous industrial facilities near our homes, schools and farms while communities absorb the costs.
If Big Tech wants to build server farms in Australia, they must do so on our terms, not theirs.
The question now is whether the Albanese Government (and the various state governments) will learn from what’s unfolding in the US, put people ahead of corporate profits and act in the interests of everyday Australians. If not, they risk paying a very heavy electoral price.
Senator Sarah Hanson-Young is the Australian Greens spokesperson for communications and Senator for South Australia.
