Anthropic has signed a long-term lease at Queensland's Western Downs Digital Park for its first Australian data center, a planned 2.16GW campus located approximately 150 miles northwest of Brisbane1,2,4. Queensland Premier David Crisafulli announced the deal in the state's Parliament on September 16, calling it a "major win" that would deliver jobs and energy to the region3.
The facility is set to come online in 2027 and would be the largest data center of its kind in Australia, according to planning documents. Macquarie Capital will partner with Singapore's Zerra DC to build the project. The Guardian reported a price tag of $31.9 billion citing planning documents, while the Australian Financial Review put the figure at roughly $30 billion.
Cooling and community concerns
The campus will use air-cooled technology to avoid straining local water resources, according to Zerra DC's planning documents. Planning filings describe four buildings, each with 36,000 square meters of data center floor space. Crisafulli sought to ease community concern over a boom in AI data center construction by emphasizing the project would add electricity to the grid rather than drain it.
The Australian government plans to introduce laws regulating data centers' water and energy use to minimize community impact and protect local areas.
Not for training Claude
The Australian Financial Review reported that the facility will not be used to train Claude, Anthropic's large language model, though the accessible excerpt does not detail the intended workload. Separately, Anthropic has lobbied Australian officials to change copyright laws to assist in training AI models.
Anthropic could not immediately be reached for comment, according to The Straits Times.
ANALYSIS The lease marks Anthropic's first physical infrastructure commitment in Australia, extending the company's compute footprint at a scale that rivals the largest campus-level builds globally.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese addressed data center development in August, though the accessible excerpt does not include the substance of his remarks. The Western Downs Digital Park campus, if completed on the stated timeline, would give Anthropic operational capacity in Australia by 2027.