Australia's biggest datacentre firm accused of using AI to write its own lobbying letters

Key points

• Victorian minister Melissa Horne accused ASX-listed datacentre company NextDC of using AI to draft lobbying correspondence sent to her office in 2024.
• The letters asked Horne to pressure a cabinet colleague to approve a large expansion of a NextDC facility described as a "hyperscale AI factory".
• NextDC chief executive Craig Scroggie signed the correspondence, which allegedly contained errors consistent with AI-generated text.
• The dispute surfaced as Victoria heads toward a state election, with community concern about datacentres growing in the regions affected.

A Victorian government minister has accused one of Australia's largest datacentre companies of drafting its lobbying letters with artificial intelligence and then asking her to use those letters to influence a government planning decision.

The company is NextDC, an ASX-listed firm that builds and operates large computer facilities renting out server space to businesses. Its chief executive, Craig Scroggie, signed correspondence addressed to Melissa Horne, the state's jobs minister. The letters asked Horne to lobby a cabinet colleague to approve a significant expansion of what NextDC called a "hyperscale AI factory", meaning an enormous facility built to run the computing workloads that modern AI systems demand. The Guardian, which broke the story, obtained the correspondence.

Horne says the letters contained errors she believes were produced by an AI writing tool. She hasn't detailed the specific mistakes publicly. The allegation, stripped bare, is that a company seeking government favour over a major infrastructure project didn't have a human write the ask.

Why does this matter beyond a political squabble?

The planning decision NextDC wanted approved is not a small one. Hyperscale datacentres, warehouse-sized buildings packed with tens of thousands of servers that power AI services, draw enormous amounts of electricity and water for cooling. Community concerns run to noise, power demand and grid strain.

When a company lobbies ministers on decisions that affect residents, the authenticity of that lobbying matters. We reported in August on Anthony Albanese heading into national cabinet to promise that new federal controls on datacentres would work alongside state rules rather than override them, with a seven-fold rise in electricity demand already in the background. This dispute lands in that same charged space. If the letters were AI-generated and nobody at NextDC caught the errors before they went to a minister, that's a straightforward failure of basic review.

NextDC hasn't confirmed or denied that AI tools were used. The company has issued no public statement.

What should readers take from this?

No planning decision has been reported as approved or rejected on the basis of this correspondence. It's a political dispute, not a regulatory ruling.

But it points somewhere real. Companies are using AI writing tools for documents that carry genuine consequences: contracts, regulatory submissions, government correspondence. Unchecked errors in those documents mean a human didn't read the final version. For anyone on the receiving end of important paperwork from a large organisation, that's a prompt to read carefully and ask questions.

Common questions

What is a hyperscale datacentre?

A hyperscale datacentre is an extremely large building, often the size of several football pitches, filled with computer servers. Tech companies and AI firms rent space inside them to run services that need vast computing power.

Is it illegal to use AI to write lobbying letters?

No. There's no law against using AI writing tools in correspondence. The controversy is about professionalism and transparency: submitting AI-generated text with unchecked errors to a government minister suggests nobody took the process seriously.

Has NextDC responded to the accusation?

NextDC had not issued a public response at the time of reporting.