Sunshine Coast Students Protest New AI Data Centre Over Environmental and Social Concerns

A $200 million data centre under construction on the Sunshine Coast has ignited a protest movement from students concerned about its environmental and social impacts.

The five-storey NEXTDC SC2 data centre under construction in Maroochydore city centre will become one of 162 data centres operating across Australia.

At least 90 more are planned nationwide, prompting a group of Sunshine Coast residents to call for stronger regulations as the infrastructure expands into suburban areas.

An AI data centre is a facility that houses the specific IT infrastructure needed to train, deploy and deliver AI applications and services. Data centre infrastructure uses significant volumes of water to keep machines cool.

The Greens are calling for a moratorium on "hyperscale" data centre development approvals, arguing the "energy vampires" are putting pressure on power supplies, water resources and communities.

It is unknown how many resources the Maroochydore AI site will use.

The Climate Council of Australia said in 2024-25 data centres used about 4 terawatt-hours (TWh), or 2 per cent of the electricity in Australia's main grid, the National Electricity Market (NEM).

This is equivalent to the electricity use of more than 700,000 homes.

At last week's Protect Sunshine Coast rally, organiser Ruby Dyer, 16, said her concerns extended beyond the Maroochydore facility to broader anxieties about the increasing role of AI in everyday life.

"We're wanting to show our leaders that there is a large group of people who aren't OK with the lack of regulations to hopefully put pressure on them to get these regulations put in place," she said.

Ruby said their concerns related to the environmental impacts, misuse by "bad users", and the diminishing prospects for young people as they entered the workforce.

"AI is doing it for them, so there is a big concern with there not being as many jobs when I go into the workforce."

University student Kate McGeechan, 19, was among the dozen young people who ditched studies and attended last week's strike outside the Sunshine Coast Council building in Maroochydore.

She was motivated after seeing Ruby's Instagram and believed young Australians had valid concerns about society's growing dependence on the technology.

"I think it was really admirable to be organised by these high school students," Ms McGeechan said.

She said she could acknowledge the human desire to want to automate processes, but she wanted people to carefully think about becoming reliant.

"I want people to think twice before using AI for their everyday activities, and just to remember that, at the end of the day, we're all human and we're all capable," she said.

She also questioned how increasing dependence could shape future professions.

The students are planning more action, including a social media campaign to encourage more young people to investigate regulations around AI data centres.

University of the Sunshine Coast discipline lead of technology Erica Mealy said some concerns raised by the students mirrored legitimate debates occurring nationally and internationally.

However, Dr Mealy said AI had the potential to improve lives when used appropriately, especially when it came to dirty, dangerous and undesirable work.

Dr Mealy said the proposed Sunshine Coast facility could deliver significant benefits to the region and rural Queensland, such as advances in remote health care.

Queensland's first regional data centre was built in Maroochydore in 2021, which is close to the construction site of the new data centre.

In a statement to the ABC, a Sunshine Coast Council representative said partnerships with NEXTDC and Google were designed to secure long-term economic growth and digital resilience for the region.

They said the key benefits would be more reliable connectivity for cloud services, data transfer and digital operations, including supporting modern AI systems.

The representative said the SC2 facility would be carbon neutral but did not answer specific questions from ABC on environmental assessments.