NEXTDC's OpenAI flex
Craig Scroggie has the bubble at his back.
It's December and we're now deep in junk time, where what passes for news in Australia is truly pitiable. Pretty much the political story of the day is whether Barnaby Joyce belched a tune at the staff cafeteria or missed a division while he was burning the pubes off his scrotum.
The bar is not a great deal higher in corporate Australia. On Friday, NEXTDC chief executive Craig Scroggie unveiled his latest announceable, flanked by two members of the Albanese ministry, an OpenAI functionary visiting from San Francisco and even Matt Comyn of the Commonwealth Bank.
For all of the ceremony and the VIP cheer squad, you'd think Scroggie – AKA the Ginger Maniac – was there to reveal his latest dead lifting PB, or that he'd signed Arnold Schwarzenegger as his strength coach. Yet it turns out he'd merely secured a commitment from OpenAI to lease capacity in a prospective 650 megawatt data centre in western Sydney.
