Craig Scroggie on AI’s hunger for power
5/1/202643 min
Artificial intelligence - and the data centres that support it - are no longer just a share market story.
It’s become a conversation about power, water, land, security, and who gets to build the infrastructure behind the next wave of the economy.
Craig Scroggie has spent 15 years building NEXTDC into one of Australia’s biggest data centre companies - and now the AI boom is sending that business into overdrive.
What does he make of the surge in demand, and the enormous build-out now under way? And what about the harder questions that come with it: how much energy will AI need? Do data centres like his push up power bills? What does it all mean for jobs? And can Australia turn this into a genuine strategic advantage?
NEXTDC chief executive Craig Scroggie joins Alan Kohler to unpack it all on That's Business with Alan Kohler.
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Clips
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First 90 secondsFran Kelly· Soundbite0:00
[upbeat music] ABC Listen. Podcasts, radio, news, music, and more [upbeat music] Hello, I'm Fran Kelly, and every day on the Radio National Hour, I take a deep breath and dive in If you can have a chip implanted in your brain to help control traumatic memory, then all you have to do is drop the adjective traumatic, and it can control memory And he said, "Oh, well, w- we'll just take your stomach out." And in my head, I was like, "How do you live without a stomach?"
Alan Kohler· Host0:28
[laughs] We're a funny species, Fran. You know, I think we're the only animal who seems to be hell-bent on their own destruction So if you wanna know how to live without a stomach or more about David Wenham's ideas for world peace, come find me on the Radio National Hour, right here on ABC Listen. [upbeat music] Artificial intelligence is taking over the world, not just the share market, but also our power supplies, our water, and maybe our workforces. Now, one of the companies that's at the center of this revolution is Australia's NextDC, listed on the ASX, currently valued at $10 billion almost, and it's been building data centers in Australia for 15 years, but it's now taking off because of AI. Last week, it announced a huge increase in its order book and a capital raising of $1.5 billion in order to build more data centers all around Australia. Craig Scroggie has been the chief executive of NextDC for its entire 15 years existence,