Google Plans AI Data Hub on Christmas Island Amid Strategic Defence Push (moderndiplomacy.eu)

Google is planning a previously unreported AI-focused data centre on Australia’s remote Christmas Island, leasing land near the airport and lining up local energy partners, according to Reuters. The company has applied for environmental clearance to build a subsea cable linking the island to Darwin — a route to be installed by U.S. contractor SubCom — which would tie the site into regional communications infrastructure near where U.S. Marines are stationed. The move follows a three-year Australian Defence Department cloud deal with Google and includes plans that could enable high-bandwidth, low-latency links needed for large-scale AI workloads; Google declined to comment. The project matters because Christmas Island, 350 km south of Indonesia, sits on key sea lanes and is increasingly treated as a strategic monitoring point for Chinese naval activity. Defence experts say a data centre with AI “command-and-control” capabilities could bolster surveillance, resilience against cyber or satellite disruption, and allied intelligence sharing, while offering commercial cloud services. Locally, officials highlight potential jobs and infrastructure benefits for the island’s 1,600 residents. The proposal still needs environmental and local approvals and, if realized, could deepen Google’s Indo-Pacific foothold and reshape regional defence-communications architecture.