Anthropic Signs First Australian Data Centre Deal Amid AI Expansion

Artificial intelligence company Anthropic has signed its first data centre lease agreement in Australia, securing capacity at a major planned facility near Brisbane as global technology companies race to expand the infrastructure needed to support the rapid growth of artificial intelligence.

Two people familiar with the agreement said the lease covers a proposed data centre campus with a planned total capacity of 2.16 gigawatts, putting it on a scale comparable with some of the largest computing facilities currently operating around the world.

The proposed facility is located on farmland approximately 250 kilometres from Brisbane and is expected to begin coming online in 2027, according to the sources.

The agreement makes Anthropic the latest major AI company to establish a significant infrastructure presence in Australia.

Technology companies are increasingly seeking access to large amounts of electricity, land and computing capacity as demand for AI services continues to rise.

Australia has been presented as an attractive destination for data centre investment because of its renewable energy resources and relatively favourable costs compared with increasingly congested technology markets in the United States and parts of Asia.

OpenAI, another leading AI company, also reached an agreement last year to secure capacity for a data centre in Sydney, highlighting the growing competition among AI firms for infrastructure and energy resources.

However, the rapid expansion of data centres has raised concerns in Australia over their potential impact on electricity supplies, water resources and land use.

The Australian government has responded to some of the community concerns by indicating that restrictions on data centres’ use of land, water and electricity could be introduced from 2027.

Despite these concerns, the government continues to encourage investment in the sector, which economists estimate could attract as much as A$150 billion by 2030.

Anthropic’s agreement reportedly involves a data centre being developed by Singapore-based Zerra DC.

The developer is expected to secure renewable power purchase agreements and cover the costs associated with connecting the proposed facility to the electricity grid.

According to the people familiar with the deal, the arrangement would not place additional grid connection costs on existing electricity customers.

Anthropic and Zerra DC declined to comment on the agreement.

The facility is expected to be used for AI inference, a process that involves rapidly processing information and generating predictions or responses from artificial intelligence models.

One of the sources said the centre is not planned to be used for AI model training.

The proposed data centre is also expected to employ a closed-loop, air-cooled cooling system, which could significantly reduce the amount of clean water required to remove heat generated by its servers.

The agreement comes at a time of increasing debate over the pace of AI development and its potential social, economic and security implications.

Anthropic Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei last week called on AI companies to slow the pace at which they advance the capabilities of their models, citing concerns over the potential misuse of increasingly powerful artificial intelligence systems.

His call was supported by Elon Musk, who heads rival AI company xAI, and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. US President Donald Trump, however, criticised AI sceptics, describing critics of the technology as “very negative forces.”

The Australian data centre project remains subject to approval by the country’s Foreign Investment Review Board.

The agreement underscores the growing scale of investment required to support the global AI industry, while also highlighting the challenge facing governments as they seek to balance technological development and economic investment with concerns about energy consumption, water use and environmental sustainability.

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