Anthropic anchors $32bn Queensland data centre, its first Australian bet

Anthropic has locked in its first foothold in Australia, signing as anchor tenant for a A$32 billion (about US$22.8 billion) data centre campus on Queensland's Western Downs — a bet on inference capacity that lands as the company's revenue run rate hits $65 billion and its global compute race intensifies.

Queensland Premier David Crisafulli announced the agreement in state parliament on 16 September, calling it the largest data centre proposed in Australia. The 725-hectare site, a former cattle feedlot near Dalby beside the Braemar power stations, is owned and developed by Zerra DC, the data-centre arm of Singapore's AGP Sustainable Real Assets, which lodged planning applications with the local council on 17 August. Four single-storey data halls will be built in stages over roughly four years, delivering about 1.44 GW of IT capacity — enough, the ABC reported, to draw power comparable to 1.5 million Australian homes.

Anthropic told the ABC the facility will run Claude for users, not train new models, with a target start date of 2027. The build is mostly air-cooled, using about 16.5 kilolitres of water a day in operation, and the government says no new transmission lines are needed. Anthropic is expected to pay full grid-connection costs and pursue long-term power deals of its own.

The deal still needs sign-off from Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board and local council planning approval, and faces opposition from residents near the site, according to ABC News. The Tech Capital put the cost at $22.8 billion and confirmed Anthropic's role as capacity anchor.

Anchoring a 1.44 GW campus signals Anthropic is planning for sustained user demand in Asia-Pacific, not a one-off capacity top-up, and doing so through a lease structure that keeps capital costs off its own balance sheet while Zerra DC and AGP carry the build risk. Queensland gains a flagship project and jobs pitch; AGP gains a marquee anchor tenant to de-risk a A$32 billion development before it has full approvals.

The real test is regulatory and local, not technical: FIRB clearance, council planning consent and community pushback near Dalby could all slow a 2027 start. For Anthropic, an inference-only footprint in Australia diversifies its compute base geographically without adding training-cluster complexity — a hedge worth watching as rivals weigh their own moves into the Asia-Pacific data-centre market.