"We've been around for 20 years, and for almost 20 years ... no one really cared," CDC data centres chief strategy officer Jack Dan told a parliamentary committee into AI in Melbourne on Friday.
"We have found ourselves being not only part of the national conversation, but pretty much front and centre.
"Part of that is driven by experiences overseas that potentially may not necessarily always reflect the specific regulatory settings in Australia. Part of that is, frankly, driven by bad behaviour."
Dr Dan did not reveal what "bad behaviour" he was referring to on the part of data centre operators, but said people had a right to be angry if their communities were slugged with rising electricity costs and water supply pressures.
"Doing infrastructure shouldn't be a trade-off to doing infrastructure well," he said.
"That (choice) in and of itself is a little bit of a sad state of affairs, because you would expect that private sector would do the right thing."
CDC is part-owned by Australia's sovereign wealth fund and specialises in work for government agencies and universities.
It does not take on many private clients and is not involved in commercial generative AI.
The company said it welcomed the government's yet-to-be-legislated national AI standards, which among other measures will force new data centres to offset their electricity consumption through renewable energy investment.
Dr Dan was also asked about CDC's decision to sever ties with Australian AI firm Firmus, which on Friday sensationally canned its plans for what would have been the second-largest initial public offering in Australian history.
The two companies were expected to collaborate on a network of renewable-powered AI "factories", known as Project Southgate, with the aim of boosting Australia's home-grown AI capacity.
CDC is no longer involved in Southgate, and Firmus' highly anticipated scheduled testimony to the federal AI inquiry on Thursday was also cancelled at the eleventh hour amid turmoil over its now-kiboshed IPO.
"Our arrangements with Firmus have begun when their focus was a lot more on Australia and creating sovereign AI capability in Australia - their business model has then since evolved," Dr Dan said.
"When things start diverging significantly from that, we continue to follow our core mission."
The inquiry also heard from experts who warned AI would be useless against languishing productivity in the hands of businesses ill-equipped to wield it.
"Australia doesn't have an AI awareness problem, what we have is an AI implementation problem," RMIT AI expert Kok-Leong Ong said.
The technology is tasked with heaving Australia's sagging productivity growth rate from 0.8 per cent up to 1.2 per cent a year over the next 40 years, according to September's Intergenerational Report.
But AI could not just be unleashed on businesses and expected to boost their output, the MPs and senators heard.
"It's not like 'build it and they will come'," CPA Australia representative Gavan Ord told the committee.
FinTech, a financial technology peak body, warned policy-makers the debate on AI had been too "narrow", with a fixation on data centres, large language models, domestic training capacity and computing power obscuring powerful success stories.
"There is actually a really significant AI revolution that's happening well beyond our cities and into the physical economy," the peak body's boss Sarah Gorman said, referencing AI-driven advances in agricultural technology that pre-date the boom.
"The AI that we've built is now as accurate as an experienced agronomist or farm manager standing in the field, and no one's talking about this."
