Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Penny Simmonds: Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology on the push to bring more data centres to New Zealand

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Penny Simmonds: Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology on the push to bring more data centres to New Zealand · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Invest New Zealand. This is a Crown agency. They want
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: foreign companies to pump thirty billion dollars investment into AI
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: data centers over five years in New Zealand. We've got
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: one in Westgate that's owned by a subsidiary an Ireland
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: to cost a billion dollars. But will they steal our
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: power at peak times? Do we have the water to
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: cool them? And what about the jobs? Do they actually
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: create them? Penny Simmons, Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: with me this morning. Minister, Good morning, Good morning Ryan.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: I mentioned AI data centers once on the show and
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: the text machine goes with people saying we need a
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: referendum on these things. I hate them. They're going to
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: steal our power. We don't have the power. They actually
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: seem quite controversial.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: They are, and yet we've got fifty six of them
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: already and they are using zero point six percent of
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: our power. So and anyone that's using the digital economy,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: anyone who's jumped on a video conference or streamed a
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: movie or done some bank online, is part of the
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: digital economy that needs the infrastructure of data centers. So
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: we have them now and we're going to need more
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: in the future, and AI is just accelerating that.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: So fifty six data centers less than a percent of
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: our power. If we get thirty billion in investment as
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: investment in z wants, how many data centers does that equal?
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: How much of our power?
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Is that equal? Well?
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: The thing is though, at the same time, we're extending
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: the amount of renewable energy that we're producing. So you've
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: heard the Prime Minister talking about the fact that we've
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: got nine renewable energy projects going through FastTrack. Six of
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: them have already been approved, three with expert panels now.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: So yes, if we weren't doing that work could be worried.
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: But we've got that happening in parallel that we're getting
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: more electricity, and so we want that electricity available so
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: that it put downward pressure on prices, but also so
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: that allows more industries to come here, like data centers,
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: and they create then that growth in our economy and
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: they create jobs.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: All right, Penny Simons, Science Minister good Tavy on the programmer.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: to News Talks it be from five am weekdays, or
• 2:22
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