The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet released the consultation paper Getting it right: Building AI infrastructure that works for Australia on 17 September 2026. The paper is a proposal open for public comment. No bill has been introduced and no instrument has been made. Submissions close at 5pm AEDT on 9 October 2026.
The proposed standards attach to generating capacity rather than to a class of operator. Facilities below 30MW fall outside them, facilities between 30MW and 100MW meet baseline requirements, and facilities above 100MW meet more substantial ones. Four conditions are proposed for covered data centres: bringing forward new renewable generation to offset annual energy demand with firming from gas, batteries or hydro and retiring renewable energy certificates to match consumption; minimising water use against Water Usage Effectiveness measures and prioritising efficient cooling, non-potable and recycled water; imposing no net cost on consumers and communities for peak period demand, transmission and network services; and meaningful engagement with communities, First Nations peoples and councils alongside skills and training contributions.
Hyperscale operators and colocation providers building in Australia carry the capital cost of the four conditions, and the network businesses and generators contracting with them carry the consequences of the energy and cost neutrality limbs. Frontier AI developers training on that compute face a separate set of proposals: minimum security and safety expectations, disclosure of defined reportable AI incidents to Australian authorities, investment in local capability, skills, research and innovation, and obligations directed at copyright in the work of Australian writers, musicians, artists and journalists used in model training.
The paper leaves open which agency would administer the standards and what penalties would attach to breach. The Australian AI Safety Institute has been established and is already conducting frontier model testing. Operators with projects at or near the 30MW and 100MW thresholds have until 9 October 2026 to put evidence on where those lines fall before drafting begins.
Licentium advises data centre operators, model developers and their financiers on artificial intelligence regulation across jurisdictions. Work we undertake includes assessing proposed compute and data centre obligations against project plans, drafting consultation submissions, and building incident reporting procedures that meet regulator expectations.