Data company urged to be 'good' after water plan slip reveals intentions

A farmer has urged an artificial intelligence company to "be a good corporate citizen" after it accidentally revealed plans to use water earmarked for agriculture to cool a data centre.Firmus Technologies, the company behind three data centres being progressed across northern Tasmania, "inadvertently" revealed the plan on its website.The "internal" note outlining a plan to use water from the Tasmanian Irrigation scheme at its proposed Wesley Vale centre was published on its FAQ page and deleted after questions from the ABC.The company says most of the water the Wesley Vale data centre needs for cooling will be rainwater captured and stored on site, and that anything outside of that was for "contingency and resilience planning".In the past, Firmus has said its Wesley Vale centre would use about the same amount of water as a "restaurant" annually.Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff visited one of Firmus' sites and met with co-CEOs Tim Rosenfield and Oliver Curtis. (Supplied: Tasmanian government)The Firmus Technologies site in St Leonards, Launceston and site for the proposed Southgate Project (empty grey area mid image). (Supplied: Tasmanian government)'Not a lot of water' needed, but concerns remainTasmanian Irrigation (TI) is a state-owned company that has been developing water pipelines around the state to guarantee water supplies for farming since 2008.Farmer Nathan Richardson is chair of the Sassafras Wesley Vale portion of the irrigation scheme, and said he had been assured Firmus was seeking a "minimal" amount of water."In the scheme of farming, [it's] not a lot of water," he said.But he said farmers across the region and Tasmania more broadly had agreed to the irrigation infrastructure being built on their land believing it was good for farming."Farmers have been very obliging by letting this pipeline go through, make a hell of a mess in their farms, for the betterment of agriculture and the district," he said."We didn't know about Firmus or the data centre when we sat down with TI years ago."Mr Richardson said it was up to TI and the government to approve Firmus' use of water from the scheme, but he expected them to do so in the best interests of other scheme users."I would expect TI and the government to negotiate very handsomely on the side of our district and our community," he said.Similarly, he encouraged Firmus to act in the interests of the existing landholders in the region."Be a good corporate citizen, Firmus."Matt Ryan, another farmer in the area, said the amount of water Firmus expected to use was not problematic, but he had previously been aware of talk about opening the irrigation scheme to industrial users."If that makes the scheme viable, then that's worth considering," he said."If it's going to be a big user and it's going to fundamentally change the scope of the scheme or the impact on irrigators, then obviously that's another conversation."Firmus, led by Tim Rosenfield (left) and Oliver Curtis, plans to build three data centres in Northern Tasmania. (ABC News: Kelsey Reid)Firmus claims rainwater will cool centre on hot daysResponding to questions from the ABC, Firmus said it intended to harvest and store rainwater onsite as the "primary water solution for the facility" at Wesley Vale.On its website, the company claims a "very limited amount of water is used" to cool its data centres, as it is only required on "hot days" above 26 degrees Celsius."Discussions regarding any supplementary water sources are separate to that primary strategy and relate to resilience and contingency planning," the company said.It said the centre will be able to store 1 million litres on site, 700,000 litres of which will be dedicated to cooling."Our modelling indicates the maximum water usage over a summer period, based on the 26 years of BOM data, is [608,000 litres]," they said.And, though they had not yet made a formal request to TI, if a connection to the irrigation scheme is not available, they will truck water to the site.AI factories contain data centre infrastructure, advanced cooling systems and graphics processing units that generate AI tokens — the currency of AI needed for tools such as ChatGPT. (ABC News: Morgan Timms)No proposal put forward yet, says governmentIn a statement, a TI spokesperson said "no undertaking" had been given to Firmus about providing water."Any application for water from industries outside of this would require consideration by the Tasmanian government and engagement with the community, including our customers," they said.Minister Felix Ellis said the government would consider any proposal through its usual process, if and when it receives one."We haven't actually received any proposal along those lines," he said."I do note as well that Firmus more broadly speak about their reduced water usage, and their ability to capture a significant amount of water with their on-site facilities."Labor MP Jen Butler said the party was seeking more information about the proposal from the government.