Anthropic signs first Australian data centre deal
Anthropic has signed its first Australian data centre agreement, committing to the first stage of a $31.9 billion hyperscale campus proposed last month by Singapore-based Zerra DC, now backed by Dexus and Macquarie, on Queensland’s Western Downs.
The AI company has signed lease documentation for the first stage of the Western Downs Digital Park, which has a planned peak capacity of 2.16 gigawatts.
The campus is planned for delivery in stages from 2027.
As well as planning approval, the Foreign Investment Review Board needs to give it the green light.
The 725.5-hectare site is currently occupied by the 24,000-head Wambo Cattle Company feedlot.
The site is about 37 kilometres north-west of Dalby (continues below).
Cattle station to data centre
Rather than model training of traditional data centres, Anthropic will use the facility for AI inference, processing queries through its Claude models.
It still requires significant electricity demand – the 2.16GW peak capacity equivalent to the average power requirements of about 1.5 million Australian households.
The deal comes as Dexus’ Australian Data Centres platform takes a 25 per cent interest in the consortium with Zerra DC and Macquarie Capital developing the campus – an agreement unveiled today.
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