Australia is building a lot of new homes. But is the datacentre boom holding us back? | Greg Jericho

Housing construction is at its strongest level since 2016, but it’s AI that is sucking up resources for builders The latest series of data on housing and building activity has been released, showing residential building is growing strongly but also that the datacentre boom is massive and ongoing. As political parties look to keep housing on the agenda, the massive resources devoted to building datacentres is going to hit anyone wishing to increase housing supply.

For a government wanting a good story, it has one in the form of housing. Not only are house prices finally showing some semblance of reality, housing construction is also doing well. In the year to June, the volume of residential building rose 8.7% – the strongest since 2016. The increase of total building was even stronger – up 10% on the year, the best since the GFC stimulus years: The government would also be extremely satisfied to see the number of new private sector house commencements rose 11.6% to 31,707 dwellings.

That number is the highest recorded since 1994, excluding the boost during the…