Arabic version: رئيس وزراء إقليم العاصمة الأسترالية يرفض مقترح ربط مراكز البيانات بالمسابح

According to ABC News, ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr has dismissed an ACT Greens suggestion that future data centres could be co-located with public swimming pools, allowing cooling water to be used as a heating source.

The proposal is included in a motion by Greens MLA Laura Nuttall, due to be debated in the ACT Legislative Assembly this week. The broader motion calls for new data centres to use best-practice water and energy consumption, and seeks a moratorium on new Canberra data centres until a new framework is in place.

Mr Barr said data centres should be located in industrial zones, where they have been planned and built in the ACT for decades. He said co-locating them with public pools would eat into community space and amenity. He also said the government would not support a moratorium, citing the role of data centres in supporting universities, the Australian government, and climate and weather modelling.

Ms Nuttall said the Greens were asking the government only to consider the pool option, rather than commit to it. She criticised a Facebook post by Mr Barr featuring an AI-generated image of a large data centre beside an outdoor pool, saying it misrepresented the proposal. She pointed to examples in the UK of data centres the size of washing machines powering public pools.

The ACT government estimates Canberra already has 15 data centres and expects to release a new data-centre framework next year. Opposition leader Mark Parton said discussion of data centres was important, but said the Canberra Liberals also did not support the pool proposal or a moratorium.