Adelaide Hills Residents Rally Against Quantum DC’s Proposed 1,200MW AI Data Centre at Tungkillo
Residents of the Adelaide Hills have vowed to fight a proposed AI data centre near Tungkillo, rallying in the river town of Mannum on Saturday with backing from the Liberal Party, the Greens and One Nation, ABC News reported.
Quantum DC wants to build a 1,200-megawatt hyperscale data centre and energy infrastructure on 120 hectares on Collins Road in Tungkillo, about 41 kilometres east of the Adelaide CBD, with a first stage starting in 2028. The company had scheduled two community consultation sessions last week but postponed them to November 20 and 21, citing safety concerns. Residents held their own meetings instead, in Tungkillo on Thursday and in Mannum on Saturday.
Organiser Magdalene Lippett said Quantum DC officials declined to attend and that locals would use every legal means to stop the project, citing land use, water supplies, noise and light pollution, and the risk to farming. She said the community was not opposed to all development, pointing to a battery storage system being built at a nearby substation.
What it means in practice
Chief executive Alby Tomassi told the ABC that about 80 per cent of the facility’s electricity would come through two on-site substations connected to ElectraNet transmission lines, backed by solar and wind contracts, with an on-site gas plant for firming. Water would come from captured and recirculated rainwater rather than the River Murray or groundwater. No development application has been lodged, and Tomassi said the company wanted to hear views first. Planning Minister Nick Champion said any proposal would face a rigorous assessment covering power and water use.
The dispute lands while South Australia runs a royal commission into artificial intelligence, which Greens leader Robert Simms wants widened to cover data centres alongside a moratorium on new ones. Liberal upper house leader Nicola Centofanti said her party was not against data centres but that community sentiment had to count, while One Nation MLC Carlos Quaremba suggested the three parties could form an alliance on the issue, as they did to block gas fracking in the south-east. Nationally, Labor is reportedly planning to keep AI data centres away from homes and tie them to renewable power, a debate in which already approved projects may escape new power and water rules.
For the Hills, the practical questions are how much gas would run on site, how much rain a campus of this size can realistically capture in a dry year, and what heavy construction would mean for local roads.
What to watch next is what Quantum DC changes after the November sessions, whether its application goes to the State Commission Assessment Panel or the minister once lodged, and whether the opposition and crossbench push a moratorium in the upper house.