AI & technology 1:18 · Transcript included
Matt Murphy, Co-founder of Lumiq, on the $155B data centre boom.
Everyone is talking about AI models. Matt is focused on what powers them. He shares why he expects another $155 billion to be invested in data centres across Australia, how Lumiq recruits for one of the country’s largest data centre operators, and why he wants to be on both sides of AI.
Interviewed by Jess Wilson · What’s Next in Tech series · The Pillars, Sydney · September 2026
Three takeaways from the AI infrastructure boom.
- 01The AI boom is a building boom. Data centres are going up across Australia right now, and Matt expects another $155 billion to be invested in them.
- 02Every data centre needs a whole workforce. Lumiq recruits for one of Australia’s largest data centre operators, from site acquisition managers to facilities technicians and everything in between.
- 03Play both sides of AI. Hire the engineers for tech-forward businesses, and also back the people and infrastructure powering them. Jess calls it looking at AI as a whole ecosystem.
Full transcript
Lightly edited for readability.
Jess Wilson: By 2030, there’s going to be another $155 billion invested into data centres across Australia. Lumiq has had some great early success, and you’re placing a lot of different engineers, but there’s also a lot of traction around that infrastructure piece when it comes to AI.
Matt: Yeah, we’ve definitely seen that: the massive boom in infrastructure. There’s a lot of data centres being built across Australia at the moment, and I think there’s going to be another $155 billion invested into data centres across Australia.
Matt: We are actually partnered with one of the largest data centres within Australia to help them do their recruitment, from site acquisition managers all the way down to data centre facilities technicians and everything in between. It’s one of the biggest and largest growing spaces within Australia at the moment, so it’s good to be partnered with them, and hopefully we get to partner with plenty more.
Matt: Because we definitely want to be on both sides of AI. We want to be on that tech side, hiring the engineers and being on the forefront with those tech-forward businesses, but then also being the people that are powering it as well, and the people that are getting behind the scenes and into the infrastructure. I’m playing both sides of it, which is good.
Jess Wilson: It’s looking at it as a whole ecosystem, which I think is a really smart move.