AI company Anthropic's deal with the Queensland government to build Australia's largest data centre on the Darling Downs, west of Brisbane, has created both excitement and unease.
While Premier David Crisafulli has trumpeted the deal as a major coup after meetings with Anthropic in the US, not everyone on the ground is so sure.
Liza Balmain, a farmer and spokesperson for Save our Darling Downs, said she was alarmed about the data centre's energy and water requirements.
"There are many unanswered questions, such as exactly where the water is going to come from and exactly how it will be powered," she told AAP.
After five years of good seasons following the drought that led to the Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20, she said complacency had set in, just as an El Nino began to tighten its grip.
"If we were back in 2019 when we were going through that raging drought, I think there would be more willingness to put the brakes on," she said.
She said the extra water would not only be needed to feed the data centre, but to quench the thirst of a bigger population.
"It's all being based on assurances from the premier and the council that these things will be taken care of."
Andrew Smith, mayor of Western Downs Regional Council in Dalby, west of Brisbane, stressed the project was still subject to approval.
But he's excited about what it could do for Dalby.
He said the jobs created during the construction phase alone could be more than 2000.
"We can't approve or not approve the development on the amount of jobs that it generates," he told AAP.
"But we're being told 1000 jobs or more, permanently, every single day of the week when the project is completed.
"That's massive, for our region."
The Climate Council said the facility would consume three times more power than Brisbane's 1.4 million residents, adding an extra 6.6 million tonnes of climate pollution a year.
"That's like putting more than two million extra cars on the roads," chief executive Amanda McKenzie said in a statement.
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