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The ASX 200 hit a new record high of 8515.7 points, fuelled by strong energy and consumer stocks and growing hopes of a rate cut from the Reserve Bank at its February meeting.

Meanwhile, challenges faced by the electricity grid have been thrown into sharp relief as record solar output fails to offset coal outages and a lack of interconnection, driving spot prices higher.

And US tech giants remain adamant DeepSeek's emergence won't derail their plans, with Microsoft and Meta planning to spend a combined $US145bn on AI this year as Mark Zuckerberg steams ahead to build a data centre almost the size of Manhattan.