By ABC News
Publication Date: 2026-01-09 21:10:00
Gladstone is one of Queensland’s industrial hubs, but it now also plays a key role in the global AI industry, producing a key mineral needed to cool high-performance chips used by some of the world’s largest technology companies.
High-performance chips in data centers support AI and are used by companies like NVIDA, Intel and Amazon.
But with the high computing power, the heat also increases, which threatens to slow down further growth.
To cool them, large modern data centers require powerful air conditioning and lots of water. Some large centers require up to 19 million liters of water per day, equivalent to the water consumption of a city of 10,000 to 50,000 people.
Alpha HPA’s processing facility aims to be at the forefront of the AI revolution. (Supplied: Alpha HPA)
High-purity aluminum oxide, made by fast-growing Gladstone-based Alpha HPA, is used in advanced chips, also known as semiconductors, to dissipate heat from critical components.
