Australia’s GDP figures are meaningless when the boom in datacentres means destroying jobs and the climate

Automatically composed with AI from the cited sources

Australia’s GDP grew 0.3% in the March quarter, with the largest single contribution coming from a surge in private investment in machinery and equipment within the information technology and communications industry—overwhelmingly datacentre-related. That investment increase was so concentrated that without it, non-mining private investment would have contracted. The Climate Council estimates datacentres will lift their share of national electricity consumption from 2% to 6% by 2030 and 12% by 2050, while running the facilities is not labour-intensive, producing little direct employment.