Re:The murky economics of the data-centre investment boom
by pkaye on Tuesday October 07, 2025 @05:03PM
(#45508839)
Is there a lot of power generation in Tasmania? That is the main criteria for AI data centers from what I heard. Latency is less critical than cost of power.
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Re:The murky economics of the data-centre investment boom
by matt_daemon on Tuesday October 07, 2025 @05:39PM
(#45509250)
Plenty of power and it’s almost always renewable: https://explore.openelectricity.org.au/energy/tas1/?range=7d...
There’s also plenty more there than sheep and tourists (and not really that many of those)
Re:The murky economics of the data-centre investment boom
by decimalenough on Tuesday October 07, 2025 @05:55PM
(#45509414)
There's pretty national parks, convict history and some pretty tasty whiskeys and wines, but not a whole lot of reasons to build a data centre. The power argument isn't particularly compelling either, because it's much more sunny on the Australian mainland.
Re:The murky economics of the data-centre investment boom
by hn_throwaway_99 on Tuesday October 07, 2025 @08:06PM
(#45510492)
> The power argument isn't particularly compelling either, because it's much more sunny on the Australian mainland.
But the vast majority of Tasmania's power is hydroelectric. Hydro is a much more desirable renewable than solar because it essentially is its own built in battery.
Re:The murky economics of the data-centre investment boom
by hsjsjdnbdbdb on Wednesday October 08, 2025 @06:17AM
(#45514369)
Might need to fact check yourself there mate. Tasmania has issues with enough power for some industries. There was a factory that could not get enough power to a planned upgrade.
God knows how a datacentre would do down there....