By TheNewDailyAU
Publication Date: 2026-01-26 19:20:00
In 2019, a new company in the Australian outback appeared poised to export our solar power to the world – upending our neighbors’ dependence on fossil fuels.
Backed by billionaires Mike Cannon-Brookes and Andrew Forrest, Sun Cable would become Australia’s largest ever renewable energy project, carrying electricity to Singapore via 4,300 kilometers of submarine cable.
It was intended to show what a different future could look like – one in which Australia could export huge amounts of renewable electricity. But now that future is being overtaken by something completely different.
As big tech companies in Australia band together to build data centers for AI, there’s a fight over how we can harness our renewable energy – and big tech companies are winning.
Today, Ketan Joshi, author and senior research fellow at the Australia Institute, talks about how Australia’s AI push is colliding with the energy transition – and what that means for our emissions, our electricity grid and the dream of becoming a clean energy exporter.
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