SIIQE Office of AI Briefing Pack

Purpose

This pack answers five questions the Office of AI is likely to ask any reference-methodology candidate in the drafting window before National Cabinet in August 2026.

• What is the methodology?
• Who has reviewed it, and what is the review status?
• How does it map to the five Commonwealth Expectations and the four site-selection vectors named in the Prime Minister’s 15 July 2026 address?
• How does it serve both a mandatory reporting layer for existing facilities and a compliance layer for new proposals?
• What does the output look like on a real Australian site?

1. Methodology summary

SiteIQ is a product of SIIQE. SiteIQ is a site-intelligence data service that generates a composite score on a 1-to-10 scale for every large-load-capable land parcel in Australia currently occupied by, proposed for, or previously proposed for a data centre or AI infrastructure facility.

The methodology structures analysis across seven pillars, each with published sub-scores and versioned methodology. Every value is stamped with its data source, retrieval date, and methodology version. The methodology also accumulates data assets across modules that support parallel disclosure regimes such as TNFD nature-related disclosure, but those sit outside the Commonwealth framework’s five vectors and are not the subject of this briefing.

The MVP composite score is a weighted arithmetic combination of the four load-bearing pillars: Power × 0.35 plus Water × 0.25 plus Planning × 0.25 plus Fibre × 0.15. The remaining three pillars (Physical Climate Risk, Fossil-Gas Alignment, Social-Licence Context) are load-bearing at the qualitative and sub-score level and inform siting analysis alongside the composite, but sit outside the numeric composite formula in the current methodology version. Composite weights are transparent, versioned, and adjustable per jurisdictional use case; a Commonwealth reference weighting may differ from a Victorian, NSW, or WA reference weighting, and the methodology accommodates this by design.

The methodology is threshold-independent by construction. It scores any parcel at any size. The reporting-threshold policy question, namely the size of facility at which mandatory reporting is triggered, is separable from the methodology itself. The Commonwealth can adopt a conservative first-year threshold (illustratively 20 MW nameplate) and adjust in subsequent years without any change to the methodology.

Data inputs refresh monthly. Methodology refreshes annually, aligned to a Commonwealth-nominated reference year, with independent review-panel sign-off before publication.

All data assets are contractually acquired under NDA where they are not open public data. No unauthorised collection of copyrighted content occurs. SiteIQ does not train foundation models and does not use artist, journalist, or unlicensed content in any part of its data pipeline. This posture is aligned to the Prime Minister’s 15 July 2026 commitments on training-data IP.

The composite score is an evidence input to regulatory decisions. It does not substitute for the statutory functions of the Office of AI, DISR, DCCEEW, the Clean Energy Regulator, or state and territory planning and water regulators, and it does not substitute for the Standards to be developed under the Commonwealth’s national framework.

2. Reviewer status

Reviewers are named after they commit in writing to be named. Naming reviewers before commitment is a reputational risk to the reviewer and a methodology-integrity risk to the reference. The Office of AI is offered visibility into the reviewer panel structure and the discussions currently underway without pre-emptive naming of individuals.

Reviewer panel status is as follows.

A cross-panel review of the composite structure and weighting scheme is under discussion with competent methodology experts across academia and industry. Proposed publication venues are recognised peer-reviewed venues appropriate to each pillar, including water-industry, energy-industry, and infrastructure-planning journals with Commonwealth recognition. Reviewer names will be published in the next methodology release with reviewer written consent, alongside their written review scope and any published dissents. The Office of AI is welcome to observe the review process at any time under confidentiality terms.

SIIQE does not undertake Traditional Owner, First Peoples, or cultural heritage assessment functions. These are the statutory function of state First Peoples’ bodies and Traditional Owner corporations. The Planning and Location pillar records public planning-scheme heritage overlays as an indicator input; it is not a substitute for heritage assessment.

3. Alignment with the five Commonwealth Expectations and the Prime Minister’s four vectors

The March 2026 Expectations name five conditions (DISR): alignment with the national interest, support for Australia’s transition to a net zero economy, support for the transition to a sustainable water future, growing the skills base for the AI economy, and encouraging AI-related research and innovation in Australia.

The Prime Minister’s 15 July 2026 address (pm.gov.au) named four site-selection vectors (where facilities are built, how they are powered under a net-generator commitment, how they use water, and how they benefit the economy in terms of jobs and skills) and one operational commitment on training-data IP.

The alignment between the five Expectations, the four Prime Ministerial vectors, and the seven SiteIQ pillars is set out below.

The March 2026 Expectations also name research and innovation, which the Prime Minister’s 15 July 2026 speech did not carry into the site-selection framework, and the speech named an operational commitment on training-data IP, which is not a site-selection variable and is addressed in Section 1.

The net-generator technical definition is available to DCCEEW for reference with or without attribution. The sustainable water future pillar structure aligns with the WSAA framework and complements DEECA’s Industry Water Connection Guide; it is a complement, not a substitute.

4. Two-layer application: mandatory reporting for existing facilities, compliance for new proposals

The Commonwealth framework as announced applies to new proposals only. Facilities already under construction are exempt, as the Prime Minister confirmed on 7.30 on 20 July 2026 in relation to the NEXTDC SC2 Sunshine Coast facility (Sunshine Coast News, 20 July 2026). Ninety-plus facilities are in the pipeline in Australia today (Australian Greens, 17 July 2026). Closing the resulting evidence gap on the existing and under-construction fleet is a substantive policy priority for the framework, on the standard Australian mandatory-disclosure precedents: the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007 (Clean Energy Regulator), the Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Attorney-General’s Department), and the Treasury Laws Amendment (Financial Market Infrastructure and Other Measures) Act 2024 climate disclosure regime (Australian Accounting Standards Board).

The SiteIQ methodology serves both layers of that framework.

4.1 One reference methodology, two applications

If the framework used two different measurement systems, one for existing facilities under mandatory reporting and one for new proposals under compliance, operators would face inconsistent measurement obligations and neither Commonwealth nor state agencies would have a single dataset to work from. A single reference methodology, versioned and audit-anchored, is the only design that produces internal consistency across both layers.

4.2 Mandatory reporting layer for existing facilities

For the mandatory reporting layer, the methodology produces facility-level values on each of the five Commonwealth Expectations on a phased basis. Every value has a documented data source, retrieval date, and derivation method, making the methodology audit-anchored by construction on the AASB S2 precedent. Where inputs are already reported under NGER (facility-level Scope 1 and 2 emissions and energy consumption for Safeguard Mechanism sites) or AASB S2 (entity-level climate risk), the methodology pulls from the existing disclosure rather than requiring re-reporting, following the standard Australian design pattern for stacked reporting regimes. Threshold independence means the Commonwealth can adopt a conservative first-year reporting threshold and adjust in later years without changing the methodology. All disclosed values are available as machine-readable feeds under the Australian Government API Design Standard for downstream use by the Clean Energy Regulator, state water corporations, and other Commonwealth and state agencies.

4.3 Compliance layer for new proposals

For the compliance layer, the seven pillars produce ex-ante sub-scores for a proposed facility on the same basis as an existing facility, using the proponent’s disclosed design specifications as input to the water, power, land, and workforce sub-scores. The net-generator sub-score is the same in both layers. The methodology produces sensitivity analysis at multiple threshold cut-offs on request, so the compliance function can test the sensitivity of a compliance finding to the “large facility” threshold definition. Cumulative-impact overlays for catchment-level water and grid-cluster-level power are produced by design: new proposals in a catchment with high existing demand score differently from new proposals in a catchment with low existing demand.

4.4 What the methodology adds over existing regimes

The seven-pillar methodology is genuinely additive over existing Australian reporting regimes. The table below sets out what each existing regime covers, what it does not cover, and how the SiteIQ methodology closes the gap at facility level.

Water consumption at facility level, cooling architecture disclosure, non-potable water utilisation and recycled-water feasibility, catchment cumulative-impact contribution, fossil-gas alignment, workforce composition and skills-catchment proximity, and residential-buffer and community-amenity composites are not covered by any existing Australian regime at the granularity the framework requires.

5. Reference site output: illustrative Victorian parcel

This section describes one worked example of a reference-site data pack, produced for a specific Melbourne land parcel. It is included as an illustration of the pack format that would be produced for any large-load-capable parcel in any Australian jurisdiction. The methodology is national in construction: the same pack format applies to every state and territory, and the Commonwealth reference methodology under discussion would produce packs of this form nationwide. Melbourne and Victorian public data are used here because all seven pillars have public data coverage in that jurisdiction and because the site is currently under public discussion, which makes the worked example fully citable to public sources.

The illustrative reference site is a large-load-capable parcel in the Whittlesea corridor (South Morang, Wollert, Epping) in Victoria. For this parcel, the pack contains:

• Composite score with all seven pillar sub-scores
• Sub-score derivations with primary data source citations and retrieval dates
• Methodology version stamp on every value
• Catchment cumulative-impact overlay for the Yarra Valley Water service area
• Non-potable feasibility overlay
• Grid headroom view including Victorian Loy Yang and Yallourn interconnect proximity
• Fibre POP proximity view
• Planning zoning cross-referenced to state overlays
• Physical climate risk overlay including bushfire, flood, and heat
• Social-licence context indicators including council submission history and public sentiment proxies

The illustrative pack demonstrates that every score value has provenance and can be re-derived from public data or NDA-acquired data, that sub-score aggregation to a composite is transparent and reproducible, that the methodology is complete on all seven pillars rather than aspirational, and that the composite score changes materially when weights are adjusted for different jurisdictional priorities. The same pack format is usable at fleet scale as the mandatory reporting output for an existing facility.

At the Commonwealth level the same methodology and pack format apply to every jurisdiction. Equivalent reference sites can be produced for New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, the Northern Territory, and the Australian Capital Territory using the same seven pillars, the same public-data provenance discipline, and the same output structure, drawing on the equivalent state-and-territory dataset stacks (state planning schemes, state water infrastructure records, state hazard mapping, and NEM data at the state connection level).

The Office of AI, DISR, DCCEEW, and the Senate Committee Secretariat may request the illustrative pack, or an equivalent pack for any other Australian jurisdiction of the requesting body’s choosing, under the confidentiality terms of the requesting body.