Facing public backlash, Firmus moves to calm concerns about its AI factories

One of three AI factories planned for northern Tasmania would be quieter than a library to the nearest resident, Firmus co-CEO Oliver Curtis says, as the company moves to assuage community concerns around power use, water and noise.

Firmus Technologies is constructing an AI factory in the Launceston suburb of St Leonards, due to be operational early next year. It will host data centre infrastructure and specialised computers which produce AI tokens — the currency of AI.

The company has also submitted development applications to build facilities at Bell Bay, near George Town in the state's north, and Wesley Vale in the north-west.

Firmus co-CEO Tim Rosenfield said the factories would be an opportunity for Tasmania.

"We think that we'll be a net attractor of young people coming into the IT industry in Tas," he told 936 ABC Hobart on Thursday morning.

Co-CEO Oliver Curtis said in addition to construction jobs, Firmus would create about half a full-time job per megawatt of power usage at the sites.

According to megawatt estimates for the projects, that would mean 52 jobs at St Leonards, 144 at Bell Bay and 20 at Wesley Vale.

Mr Rosenfield said the company had "responded as quickly" as it could to community pushback, saying it wanted to explain the projects to residents and give them an opportunity to provide feedback.

"We've started a really fulsome community engagement, we've got upcoming drop-in sessions — I'll be there in person — we've got webinars," he said.

Residents worried about cost-benefit

Joe Zadravec and his wife Anne-Marie Bastian live at Rowella, across the river from the proposed Bell Bay AI factory.

"We're concerned that … the size is going to be an issue in terms of being so high and all the cooling infrastructure being on the roof, what that's going to do as far as casting noise," Mr Zadravec said.

The independent noise report in the development application states the worst-case scenario noise at Rowella would be 30.5 decibels — the noise equivalent of a whisper, according to Safe Work Australia — and concluded the project would "not result in unreasonable noise impacts".

Mr Curtis said at full capacity the noise across the river to the nearest resident 1 to 2 kilometres away would be "less than the noise of which you would [hear when you] walk into a library".

But Mr Zadravec is not convinced.

"I'm concerned that after it's built, that's not going to be the case, simply because of the sheer scope of what's being proposed," he said.

He wants Firmus to be clearer on the benefits for the state.

"The point is, what does the state get back?"

he said.

"What do we get back from giving unconditional use of such a huge chunk of our resources?"

Water usage just 'a couple of restaurants' worth'

The development application for Firmus's Bell Bay proposal shows it has requested 19.2 million litres of water from TasWater per year — the equivalent of 110 households' worth of water use.

The company said it would likely only need less than half of that, using dry cooling except for when temperatures reached 26 degrees Celsius.

Mr Curtis said he recognised water usage was a "very strong, big topic" for the community.

He said Firmus had plans to use 3.3 million litres per year at the Launceston site, 8.7 million at Bell Bay and 700,000 at Wesley Vale.

He said a typical restaurant would use 3.4 million litres of water per year, and so, "we're using less water than one restaurant uses in a year [at the Launceston site]".

"So you compound that out over a couple of times to George Town — it's 8.7 million litres. It's a couple of restaurants' worth."

Amr Omar, who researches the sustainability of data centres' water and energy use, said Firmus's approach used less water for cooling than traditional data centres — but it came with a trade-off.

"When we use dry cooling, we require more electricity to cool that same space," the senior research associate at the University of New South Wales School of Mechanical Engineering said.

That can mean even more water is used if the electricity is generated through fossil fuels, but Firmus says its facilities will be powered by renewables.

Firmus to fund new renewable generation

The company has an agreement with Tasmanian energy retailer Aurora for 104 megawatts of renewable hydro energy to power its St Leonards AI factory.

Energy Minister Nick Duigan has said Firmus would require more than 400 megawatts of power for its three proposed sites — which would make it the largest power user in the state.

To make up for what it will use, Firmus has committed to supporting the build out of new renewable energy.

Dr Omar said it was common for companies to do this through renewable power purchase agreements.

Instead of installing new renewable energy capacity to the grid directly, companies could pay more for their energy usage.

"So data centres pay the extra investment to the government, and then the government needs to decide how they're going to install these renewable energy systems," Dr Omar said.

"Installing a data centre from A to Z might take a year, but for a renewable energy system, that could take three to five years,"

he said.

Firmus earlier this week released a series of commitments around its energy and water use.

The company said as a starting point, each megawatt hour it consumed would be matched by a "government-recognised renewable energy certificate".

Mr Curtis told 936 ABC Hobart that Firmus had also committed to a policy where its energy suppliers would be "contractually obliged to build new generation and build new storage".

The company has announced a partnership with Gunver to invest in renewable generation in South Australia to support its planned AI factories there.

"Because we're paying them hundreds of millions of dollars a year, there is an obligation in the contract we've signed with them to commit 1.2 gigawatts of new renewables and build 1.8 gigawatt hours worth of batteries," Mr Curtis said.

The company has not yet outlined its plans for Tasmania.

"I can't talk specifically to the Hydro contract because we haven't executed that, we're in negotiations at the moment," Mr Curtis said.

Firmus's other energy commitments include self-funding the costs of new transmission infrastructure to connect its factories to the grid, and investing in grid firming capacity such as batteries.

It also promised to switch to back-up generators during peak demand periods to reduce grid stress, and to pay market rates for its electricity.