Project Ares:
Your Questions Answered

What actually is a data centre?

A data centre is a secure facility housing the computing equipment that stores, processes and moves the world's digital information. Every time anyone sends an email, streams video, makes an online payment, uses cloud software or interacts with AI, the processing happens in a data centre somewhere. They are the physical backbone of the digital economy, and as AI grows, so does the need for larger, more power-intensive facilities. Project Ares is proposed as a hyperscale campus: a large-scale facility of this kind, together with the power, cooling and supporting infrastructure needed to run it reliably around the clock.

Why is the data centre so big?

The scale reflects the requirements of hyperscale customers, the global technology companies that operate at gigawatt scale for AI and cloud computing. Demand for that kind of capacity across the Asia-Pacific is growing quickly, and building at hyperscale from the outset is intended to meet that customer requirement efficiently, as a single integrated project, rather than in smaller stages.

What will the data centre be used for?

The campus is designed for AI training, cloud computing and data processing, serving global technology companies. In practical terms, this is the kind of large-scale computing power behind modern AI systems and the cloud software and digital services people and businesses increasingly rely on.

Are Project Ares and Project Sol the same project?

No. Project Ares and Project Sol are two separate projects, each proposed at Murranji Station, with distinct products, customers, markets, investors and commercial structures. They are co-located to make efficient use of a suitable site, and over time there may be opportunities to share some infrastructure, which could reduce total land disturbance. But each project stands on its own: Project Ares is independently viable and does not depend on Project Sol proceeding, or vice versa, and Project Sol would be the subject of its own separate environmental referral.

What does Commonwealth Major Project Status mean? Is the project already approved?

No, Major Project Status is not an approval. Project Ares has been granted Commonwealth Major Project Status, which recognises its national significance. The project also aligns closely with the Australian Government's National Data Centre Expectations. Major Project Status provides coordinated Australian Government facilitation through the approvals process, but it does not pre-judge or shortcut the environmental assessment. All approval decisions rest with the Commonwealth environment minister under the EPBC Act and with the Northern Territory's assessment processes.

How does Project Ares align with the Government's five National Data Centre Expectations?

The Australian Government's Expectations of Data Centres and AI Infrastructure Developers, released in March 2026, set out five national expectations for responsible data centre development. Project Ares was designed around all five, and has been awarded Commonwealth Major Project Status. In summary:

• National interest: Project Ares is proposed as major digital infrastructure built and operated onshore, adding sovereign computing capacity on Australian soil, under Australian jurisdiction.
• Energy transition: the project would bring its own new energy rather than drawing on any electricity network. Solar and battery storage would be built in stages, with hydrogen-ready, gas-fired generation providing firm power and backup. Gas would carry more of the load in the early years, and less as each renewable stage is commissioned.
• Water: the project proposes to use groundwater, independently assessed and licensed by the NT Government and capped at the licensed volume, so it would not draw on any town or municipal water supply. Water efficiency, including closed-loop cooling, is built into the design.
• Skills and jobs: construction would employ around 4,300 people at its peak, and operations would build to around 350 to 500 ongoing roles at full capacity. Employment, training and business commitments would be formalised through a Territory Benefit Plan developed with communities and Traditional Owners.
• Research and local capability: the project provides a generational opportunity to build skills, businesses and supply chains, in the Barkly and across the Territory, from construction and operations through to the services that support them, growing Australian expertise in delivering infrastructure of this kind. It would also open partnerships with Territory and Australian research institutions, and support onshore access to computing capacity for Australian researchers over time.

Each of these is covered in more detail in the relevant sections of this page.

How much water will Project Ares use?

Our environmental referral states a conservative upper limit of approximately 4 gigalitres (GL) of groundwater per year. It is important to understand what this figure is, and what it is not.

• It is a whole-of-project annual maximum: a deliberately conservative ceiling for any single year, adopted so regulators assess the project against a worst-case scenario, not a best-case one.
• The years approaching that maximum are the construction and build-out years, when water is needed for activities such as the peak workforce village, earthworks, dust suppression, concrete works and construction of the airstrip, alongside the staged build of the data centre and its renewable energy infrastructure. It is not a figure for data centre cooling only, which people often assume.
• Once construction is complete and the project reaches steady operation, water use would be lower than the construction peak. Ongoing operational water is used mainly for everyday site needs, such as the operational workforce, general site use, and maintaining on-site firefighting water reserves, with the closed-loop cooling system itself using very little water.
• It is not a target, and it is not a forecast of actual use. Actual use is expected to be below this maximum as the design is finalised through detailed engineering design.
• Water extraction will be metered and reported to the regulator as a requirement of the water licence.

What is closed-loop cooling, and why does it matter?

In a closed-loop system, cooling water circulates continuously within a sealed system rather than being consumed and replaced, so the cooling system itself uses very little water. This is a dramatic reduction compared with the conventional evaporative cooling used in many older data centres, which consumes large volumes of water. Water efficiency has been embedded in the design of Project Ares from the outset, not added later.

Will the project drain the aquifer that pastoralists rely on?

The project would draw from the same regional groundwater system that neighbouring pastoral and agricultural users rely on. But it cannot take more than that system can sustainably provide: any extraction must be licensed against what the aquifer can support for all who depend on it, including neighbouring pastoralists, nearby communities and the environment. Water would only be taken under a Northern Territory Government extraction licence, set through independent assessment of what the Montejinni Limestone Aquifer in the Wiso Basin can sustainably provide alongside pastoral, community and environmental needs. Before any licence is granted, dedicated investigative drilling and pump testing at the site would gather the data needed to develop a detailed hydrogeological model, used to assess sustainable yield and support the licence application. Extraction would be metered, monitored, reported and capped at licensed volumes. The project would also not draw on any town water scheme or potable supply.

Have local people and Traditional Owners been consulted about the water?

Water is one of the issues we most want to get right. Engagement with the Northern Land Council has begun, and water would be part of the on-country engagement with Traditional Owners planned for 2026. We are also engaging with neighbouring pastoral leaseholders, for whom groundwater is a shared and immediate interest. Broader engagement with the Barkly community is planned as the project progresses, and would continue through the assessment process. Beyond our own engagement, the NT Government's water licensing process is itself a formal check: it assesses any extraction against the needs of other water users and the environment before a licence can be granted, and it provides for public and stakeholder input. Groundwater extraction would be monitored and reported to the NT Government under the licence conditions, providing an ongoing, independent check on actual use against what was licensed.

Other major projects also want water from this region. What about the combined impact?

Cumulative impact is exactly what the Northern Territory's water licensing framework is designed to manage. All extraction licence applications in the region, ours and anyone else's, are assessed by the NT Government against the Georgina Wiso Water Allocation Plan and its estimated sustainable yields, which account for the combined demand of all users alongside environmental and cultural water needs. No applicant, including us, can be licensed beyond what the system can sustainably provide. Our application would be subject to that independent process, and our extraction would be capped at whatever volume is licensed.

Will Project Ares push up power prices for Territorians?

No. Project Ares is designed to be fully self-powered. There is no transmission network at Murranji Station, and the project would generate every megawatt it uses on site. It would add no load to any electricity network, including the local systems supplying Barkly communities, so it would not compete with households or businesses for power, and no consumer would pay anything toward grid or generation infrastructure for the project.

Why the Northern Territory, and why this site?

A hyperscale, self-powered campus needs a rare combination of things, and the Barkly has them. The solar resource here sits in the top 5% globally, and Murranji Station offers the large area of suitable land that gigawatt-scale solar generation needs.

For somewhere so remote, the site is also well connected. The Stuart and Buchanan Highways and the Tarcoola–Darwin railway run nearby, so major equipment can come in by rail rather than road, and the region is served by existing and planned energy infrastructure corridors. Fibre networks follow the same corridors, with more under construction and planned, linking the site to Darwin's international submarine cables and the digital markets of Asia beyond.

The site sits within the Georgina Wiso Water Allocation Plan area, where the NT Government has already set estimated sustainable yields and water allocations for the region. Our initial groundwater modelling indicates the project's needs can be met within that framework alongside existing users, and any extraction would still be independently assessed and licensed, metered, and capped at the licensed volume. And because the site is a considerable distance from towns and homesteads, the footprint sits within a large pastoral landscape rather than near dense settlement. That distance reduces proximity impacts, though it does not mean the area is empty. Neighbouring pastoralists, communities and Traditional Owners have real connections to this country, and their interests are part of the assessment and our engagement.

Energy North looked at alternative regions and sites across Australia before settling here. Murranji Station is where all of this comes together on one available property.

Why does Project Ares need gas?

Because hyperscale data centres must run every hour of every year, with fully independent backup, and their operators require proof of that reliability before they commit. At this scale, solar and batteries alone cannot yet deliver that guarantee, and gas is the most technically and commercially viable firm power option available within the project's timeline and location.

It also helps to be clear about the role gas plays. The figure of up to 1,038 MW is capacity: what the gas-fired generation can deliver when the campus needs firm power or backup. How hard it actually works will change over the life of the project. Gas will carry more of the load in the early years, while the solar (up to 3,000 MWp) and battery storage (16 GWh) stages are built out and commissioned, and progressively less as they come online. Over the long term the design is renewables-led, with gas providing firm power and backup, and the mix at each stage will be confirmed through detailed design.

Without firm power there are no customers, and without customers there is no solar farm, no jobs and no project. Gas is not the alternative to the renewable campus. Gas is what makes the renewable campus possible.

How does an off-grid data centre keep running 24/7?

The campus generates all of its own power on site, drawing nothing from any external electricity network. At full build-out, a typical day runs on solar while the sun is up, powering the facility and charging the batteries, with the batteries then carrying it through the evening and overnight. Gas-fired generation steps in through longer stretches of low solar output, and provides the fully independent backup a hyperscale facility must have.

That full build-out is reached in stages. Each new solar and storage stage shifts the system further onto its renewable generation, with the mix confirmed through detailed engineering design and managed under the project's Energy Management Plan and transition pathway commitments. The gas-fired generation is also hydrogen-ready, so it can move to hydrogen fuel as supply infrastructure and technology mature.

Where will the gas come from?

The commercial arrangements for gas supply are yet to be finalised, and no binding supply agreement is in place. The realistic supply options are sources in the region, including the Beetaloo Sub-basin, and these are what we are evaluating.

What is clear is how the gas would be delivered. Within the project area, Energy North would build, own and operate a spur pipeline connecting the gas-fired generation to the project boundary, and that spur forms part of our referral. The off-site trunk line delivering gas to that connection point would be developed, owned and operated by a third party under its own separate environmental assessments and approvals, and may be located within the proposed Territory Energy Link corridor, the NT Government's multi-user infrastructure corridor. The supply pathway will be disclosed through the assessment process, before the regulators make their approval decisions.

What about the project's greenhouse gas emissions?

Yes, the project will have emissions. Gas-fired generation produces them, and because gas would carry more of the load in the early years, emissions would be higher in that period. But that period has an end designed into it. As each solar and storage stage is commissioned, it displaces gas generation, so emissions fall as the build-out progresses. This transition is managed under the project's Energy Management Plan and transition pathway commitments.

These emissions are not unregulated. They will be assessed in detail through the environmental assessment, and the Commonwealth Safeguard Mechanism sets binding emissions limits on Australia's large facilities, with caps that decline year on year, alongside the Northern Territory's greenhouse gas requirements for major new projects. And because the campus will be fully self-powered, with its solar and storage built new on site, it adds no load and no emissions burden to any electricity network.

What will the project's carbon footprint be?

A full greenhouse gas assessment, covering construction and operations, will be undertaken and published through the environmental assessment process. Firm figures depend on detailed design and that assessment work, so they aren't available yet. Putting rough estimates here wouldn't be meaningful, and the credible numbers will come through the assessment, alongside the methodology behind them and open to public comment.

What the design does guarantee is that the numbers, when they come, will be real ones. Because the campus generates all of its own power on site, every megawatt-hour can be traced to the solar, storage or gas generation that produced it, rather than estimated through grid-average accounting or annual certificate matching. The project's emissions reporting will be based on what actually happened, hour by hour, and can be independently verified.

Does the project really disturb 19,150 hectares?

No. The 19,150 hectares is not a clearing plan. It is the maximum area of ground disturbance assessed in our referral, adopted deliberately so the environmental assessment covers the worst case and the project cannot outgrow what was assessed. It sits within a much larger project area, most of which would never be disturbed and would continue as working pastoral country. The ultimate disturbance footprint is expected to be materially reduced as the layout is refined through detailed engineering design, ecological and heritage surveys, using and upgrading existing tracks and disturbed areas wherever practicable. The largest single component is the solar farm, since generating this much solar power requires a large array of panels spread across the site. The data centre campus itself is a small fraction of the total.

What about the Bilbies and other threatened species?

Protecting the Greater Bilby and other listed species is a central obligation of this project. Energy North has worked closely with the relevant Northern Territory government departments and specialist ecologists from the outset, drawing on existing baseline data for the site, including government biodiversity records and earlier ecological survey work at Murranji Station.

Available threatened species baseline data for the site, including results from recent NT Government regional biodiversity surveys and earlier survey work at the site, has informed the preliminary infrastructure layout, siting infrastructure away from areas where threatened species may occur. But fauna can be transient, the Bilby especially, moving around as food and conditions change, so to verify and build on those survey records we will undertake targeted field surveys. These focus on the species considered most likely to occur at the site. Whether they are actually present is what the surveys determine. The program includes dedicated Greater Bilby aerial surveys mapping burrows, habitat and food sources, targeted surveys for species such as the Grey Falcon, Yellow-spotted Monitor and Northern Blue-tongued Skink, ground-truthing of sensitive vegetation and baseline weed surveys. The species list in our referral is deliberately conservative, prepared to capture every threatened species that could be present, not only those already confirmed.

The outcomes of these surveys will further refine the infrastructure layout and siting. Infrastructure would be sited to avoid the most important habitat first, minimise impacts second, and offset any residual impacts under Commonwealth and Territory requirements. All of this will be assessed in detail through the Commonwealth and NT environmental assessment processes.

How is Energy North engaging with Traditional Owners?

Energy North has begun engaging with the Northern Land Council, the representative body for native title holders and affected parties at Murranji Station. Formal on-country engagement with Traditional Owners is planned for 2026, coordinated through the NLC, and guided throughout by the principles of Free, Prior and Informed Consent.

No ground-disturbing work would begin until the necessary Traditional Owner consents and cultural heritage clearances are in place.

What will construction mean for traffic on the Stuart and Buchanan Highways?

Construction of a project this size involves significant freight and workforce movements, and our referral identifies heavy vehicle traffic on the Stuart and Buchanan Highways as a potential impact to be managed. Traffic would be heaviest during construction and would fall away once the project moves into operations, but the project is designed to keep that peak load down in three ways. A rail siding connecting to the Tarcoola–Darwin railway would allow major equipment and materials to move by rail rather than road wherever practicable. The construction workforce would be accommodated on site in a self-contained village, minimising daily commuting on public roads. And a sealed airstrip would handle workforce transfers by air. Any remaining road transport, including oversize or over-mass movements, would be managed under a traffic management plan developed with the relevant road authorities and assessed through the environmental assessment.

How will bushfire risk be managed?

Fire is part of life in this region, and the project's fire planning has to work in both directions. It means preventing the project from starting fires, and protecting it from the fires the landscape produces every dry season. On the first, ignition risks would be managed at the source, through controls on hot works and machinery during construction, and the design standards, separation, monitoring and suppression systems built into the battery storage and electrical infrastructure. On the second, infrastructure would be protected through asset protection zones, fuel management and fire breaks, designed for a landscape where fire is a regular reality. Much of this works both ways. Managed fuel loads, cleared buffers and on-site response capability protect the neighbours from the project and the project from the landscape alike. Because the site is remote, the project would maintain its own on-site firefighting and emergency response capability, including dedicated firefighting water reserves, rather than relying on distant services, so any fire, on site or approaching it, can be met hard and early. Fire management planning would be developed in consultation with Bushfires NT, NT emergency services and neighbouring pastoralists, and assessed through the environmental assessment process.

Isn't it better to build data centres near cities where the infrastructure already exists?

It can be, for a smaller facility. But at gigawatt scale, clustering near cities is what's straining grids and water supplies. Data centres have clustered heavily in a handful of regions, on Australia's east coast around Sydney and Melbourne, and overseas in places like Northern Virginia, Texas, Ireland and Singapore, and that concentration is now driving community pushback and, in some cases, higher power prices for existing customers. Locating in a new region, on abundant land with a world-class solar resource, spreads that demand rather than piling it onto already-stretched networks. And because Project Ares would be fully self-powered, it would bring its own power and water rather than relying on the local grid or public water infrastructure that near-city sites compete for.

Remote does not mean impact-free, and it does not mean the impacts matter less. It means they are different. A remote site avoids the strain that near-city data centres put on grids, town water and dense communities, but it carries its own responsibilities, to threatened species and habitat, to cultural heritage, and to the neighbouring pastoralists who share this country. Grazed country is still country that holds real environmental and cultural value, and examining the project's impacts on it is exactly what the environmental assessment is for.

What are the main benefits of the project for the Territory?

Project Ares would bring a substantial, long-term economic contribution to the Barkly and the wider Northern Territory. In summary:

• significant capital investment in the region;
• a peak construction workforce of around 4,300, and an ongoing operational workforce building to around 350 to 500 people at full capacity (including data centre tenant staff), in a region of around 7,400 people;
• procurement opportunities for Barkly and Territory businesses, both existing and emerging, with a specific focus on Aboriginal business, employment and economic participation, to be developed with Traditional Owners and formalised through the Territory Benefit Plan and Indigenous Land Use Agreement;
• training, apprenticeship and skills pathways for people in the Barkly and across the Territory, and research and innovation partnerships with local institutions;
• and project infrastructure that could deliver wider regional benefits, such as a sealed airstrip with aeromedical access.

Because this is long-term infrastructure, these benefits would be sustained over decades rather than tied to a short construction period, and the key commitments would be captured in a Territory Benefit Plan under the NT Government's Territory Benefit Policy. Several of these are covered in more detail in the answers below.

How will local people get jobs on the project?

A project only delivers for its region if local people can actually access the work, so pathways matter as much as job numbers. Across construction and operations, the project would support roles spanning civil works, electrical and mechanical trades, renewables installation and maintenance, transport and logistics, catering and facilities, water management, and data centre operations.

We want as much of this workforce as possible to be local, and we are being upfront about what a project of this scale requires. Construction would need a workforce peaking at around 4,300 people, and operations an ongoing workforce building to around 350 to 500 at full capacity. A construction workforce of that size cannot be drawn from the local area, or from the Territory alone, particularly as several other major energy and infrastructure projects are planned across the region over a similar period, all drawing on the same skilled workforce. The project would look first to local and Territory workers, then to a fly-in fly-out workforce from the national labour pool, and to international labour where skills gaps remain, particularly for specialist roles and at peak construction.

Within that, local and Territory employment is a genuine priority, not an afterthought. Our aim is to employ locally wherever we can, and to grow the local and Territory share over time rather than treat it as fixed. That is where training and workforce development come in. Energy North would work with partners including the NT Industry Capability Network, industry, government and training institutions to develop apprenticeship, training and pre-employment pathways, so that Territorians, including people in Barkly communities, can build the skills to take up more of these roles as the project progresses.

These workforce commitments would be developed and formalised through a Territory Benefit Plan. Much of the construction would be delivered by contractors engaged by Energy North, and local and Aboriginal participation targets would be built into those contracts as they are procured, so the commitments carry through to the businesses actually doing the work. The skills built also transfer to the Territory's broader pipeline of energy and infrastructure projects, so the capability can outlast any single project.

What opportunities will there be for local and Aboriginal businesses?

Construction and long-term operations would create demand across a wide range of services, from civil works, earthmoving and transport to accommodation, catering, cleaning, maintenance, fencing, fire management, and land and weed management. Local and Territory businesses, both established and emerging, are well placed to supply many of these. Wherever practicable, work packages would be structured so that local businesses can realistically bid for them.

For Aboriginal businesses, this is a priority, not an add-on. Procurement and business development opportunities would be developed with Traditional Owners and formalised through the Territory Benefit Plan and the Indigenous Land Use Agreement. Aboriginal employment is part of this too, supported through the same training and development pathways as the wider local workforce, so that skills can be built toward the roles the project needs.

Because this is multi-decade infrastructure, the demand is long-term rather than tied to a short construction boom. That kind of certainty lets a local or Aboriginal business invest, hire and grow.

Data centres are often criticised for creating few jobs and delivering little local benefit. Is Project Ares any different?

Yes, and in two specific ways.

First, Project Ares is not a typical data centre. It is a fully integrated, self-sufficient campus, so it needs people to run far more than the data halls. It has its own power to operate and maintain, the solar farm and battery storage spread across thousands of hectares and the gas generation plant, along with water supply and treatment, the airstrip, and on-site accommodation and services. A grid-connected city data centre draws its power, water and services from existing networks and needs few of these roles. Because Project Ares provides these itself rather than drawing on existing networks, it sustains a broader and more varied workforce, over decades rather than a short construction period.

That breadth matters, because it is not all specialist technical work. Alongside the highly skilled roles, an integrated campus needs trades, operations, maintenance, transport, land and fire management, catering and facilities roles, many of which local people can build toward over time through training and pathways.

Second, the benefits are designed to stay local, governed through the Territory Benefit Plan and the Indigenous Land Use Agreement, which carry obligations to deliver, not just to intend. Local and Aboriginal participation would be set out in those instruments and carried through into project contracts as they are procured.

The value this project would generate, the wages, the contracts, the training and the tax, would be generated and spent in Australia, and in the Territory, not offshore.

What happens to the cattle station?

Murranji Station would remain a working pastoral property. The project is being developed with the support of the pastoral leaseholder, and the area involved sits within a much larger station, with the actual disturbance footprint smaller again. Pastoral operations would continue across the station alongside the project, and Energy North would work with the pastoral leaseholder on practical matters such as access, fencing, stock water and biosecurity through construction and operations.

Pastoralism and energy infrastructure already co-exist across northern Australia, and the project has been sited and designed with that co-existence in mind.

Will 4,300 construction workers overwhelm local towns?

No. The construction workforce would be housed in a self-contained camp on site, built with its own catering, recreation, medical and support services precisely so it doesn't draw on surrounding towns.

That doesn't mean there's no impact. A workforce this size can add demand on regional services, affect the amenity and feel of nearby communities like Elliott and Daly Waters, and, if construction overlaps with other major projects, contribute to cumulative pressure across the region. How those effects are managed, including the way the workforce interacts with local towns, would be worked through with the communities themselves in a dedicated Social Impact Assessment.

Who is behind Energy North, and how will the project be funded?

Energy North's founder and leadership team are Australian, with experience spanning major renewable, LNG, mining and industrial projects across remote Australia, and the project is led and managed from within Australia by its Australian-based team. Its corporate base is in Singapore, which is the regional hub for the hyperscale customers and infrastructure investors this industry raises capital from.

To date, Project Ares has been funded entirely by Energy North's founder, through its current development phase. Later phases would be financed as the project moves through approvals toward a final investment decision.

What is the indicative timeline for the project?

Project Ares has been referred to both the Commonwealth, under the EPBC Act, and the Northern Territory EPA. The Commonwealth public comment period closes on 13 July 2026, and the NT EPA submission period is open until 20 August 2026. The level and form of assessment the regulators will set is still to be confirmed, so we can't put fixed dates on approvals. We are working closely with both regulators to progress the assessments as efficiently as the statutory processes allow.

The project is targeting first power in mid-2028, and is working to align delivery with customer requirements. Meeting this target will depend on approvals and final investment decision timing, and construction is planned as an approximately three-year programme, delivered in stages to reach full build-out. As with any project of this scale, these dates would move with the assessment and approval timelines.

Once operating, the facility is designed for more than 25 years of operations and a project life beyond 30 years. All of these timeframes are indicative and would be refined through detailed design and the assessment process.

Why does Energy North believe the project should proceed?

Project Ares would bring significant, lasting benefit to a part of Australia that sees few opportunities of this scale. It would mean investment, jobs, training and business opportunities across the Barkly and the wider Territory, sustained over decades rather than tied to a short construction period.

Nationally, as demand for AI and cloud computing grows, Australia needs sovereign computing capacity on its own soil, and Project Ares is designed to provide it, powered by its own new generation rather than drawing on existing networks.

The project has been designed around the Australian Government's national expectations for responsible data centre development. And Energy North is committed to delivering it, having funded the project through its development phase.

Real regional benefit, national digital sovereignty and a renewables-led design. That combination is why we believe the project deserves to proceed.

Is Energy North confident the project will be approved?

We're confident in the project's merits, and committed to delivering it, but whether it is approved is a matter for the regulators, not something for us to predict. Our job is to put forward an open, evidence-based account of the project, then leave the decision to the Commonwealth and the Northern Territory. We would rather earn support that way than assume the outcome.

Some are calling for a pause on new data centres until regulations catch up. Why should Project Ares proceed now?

The concerns driving that debate, energy and water use, community consultation and transparency, are legitimate, and they are exactly what the assessment process exists to test. Project Ares has been referred to both the Commonwealth and the NT, and a detailed assessment phase will follow. That process is already testing the project openly and rigorously, before any decision is made.

On the framework itself, it's true that Australia's rules for data centres of this kind are still developing. But that does not mean the project is unregulated. The Australian Government has set out national Expectations for responsible data centre development, and Project Ares has been designed around them, ahead of any requirement to. The project is also bound by the laws that already apply. Its water must be independently licensed and capped, its emissions fall under the Commonwealth Safeguard Mechanism, and its impacts are assessed and conditioned under Commonwealth and Northern Territory environmental law. Rather than waiting for the rules to catch up, the project has been designed around the same concerns those rules would address.

A blanket national pause would not make global demand for AI infrastructure go away. That demand doesn't disappear. It moves to wherever infrastructure can be built, sometimes to places with weaker environmental and community safeguards, while Australia, and regions like the Barkly, miss out on the jobs, business opportunities and long-term benefits the investment would have created here. The better path is the one already underway, assessing each project on its own merits so the right ones proceed in the right places, on the right terms.

How can I have my say?

Project Ares has been referred to both the Commonwealth, under the EPBC Act, and the Northern Territory Environment Protection Authority. The Commonwealth public comment period closes on 13 July 2026, and the NT EPA submission period is open until 20 August 2026. Submissions to the NT EPA can be made through its website, where the referral documents can also be read in full. As the assessments progress, there may be further opportunities to comment. We'd encourage anyone with an interest in the project to take part, and you're also welcome to contact the project team directly with questions or feedback.

>Have a question we haven't answered?

Contact us at [email protected] and we'll consider it for this page. We review and update this page regularly throughout the assessment process.