Anthropic Signs First Australian Data Centre Lease in $31.9B Queensland Project
Synopsis
Anthropic has signed its first Australian data centre lease in a planned $31.9 billion Queensland project, adding to Australia’s expanding AI infrastructure capacity.
Anthropic Queensland data centre plans have taken a step forward with the signing of the first data centre lease in Australia for the proposed Western Downs Digital Park near Dalby, an artificial intelligence company based in the United States of America.
The overall $31.9 billion project will take four phases to complete with the first planned to be operational in 2027 once planning approval and approval from the Foreign Investment Review Board.
2.16GW Campus Planned Near Dalby
The 1.16GW Anthropic data centre will be part of a proposed campus of 2.16GW spanning 725.5 hectares approximately 250km west of Brisbane.
Anthropic will be using the facility for AI inference, the process of accepting requests, running AI models, and returning their results. It is reported that the agreement is not intended to train those models.
The entire Western Downs project may require electricity equivalent to the average use of a population of approximately 1.5 million homes in Australia. The development will be located in the vicinity of Braemar power station and will tap into the existing electricity network (with infrastructure approvals required).
The project is being developed by Zerra DC of Singapore, and is being backed by a consortium of Dexus and Macquarie Capital. Dexus has stated it has a 25 per cent stake in the consortium with its Australian Data Centres business.
Australia’s Data Centre Market Is Expanding
The agreement between Anthropic and Australian operators follows a growing trend by operators to scale up capacity to meet the rising demand for cloud computing and AI workloads.
According to Data Centres Australia data, there are currently approximately 1.6GW of data centre capacity in Australia. Meanwhile, Nvidia has made independent announcements to Australian infrastructure partners for additional capacity for AI-related projects through to 2027, up to 2GW which includes AirTrunk, NEXTDC and CDC.
The existing infrastructure is clustered in the big cities in Australia, such as Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. NEXTDC has locations throughout those cities and other locations throughout Australia and AirTrunk has large hyperscale campuses in Sydney and Melbourne.
The net profit for the year ended June 2026 was reported as A$82.1 million by NEXTDC which saw a 16% increase in revenue. The company also said it had seen increased electricity and water consumption as it has added more capacity.
Anthropic's latest move into the data centre space comes after its May 2026 Series H funding round that raised US$65 billion for the company, and valued it at a post-money valuation of US$965 billion. Earlier this month, Anthropic also disclosed that its revenue run rate was more than US$47 billion.
The operating date of 2027 is not yet a final development timeline and the Queensland project is still awaiting approvals.
Source: Smart Company
Pooja Malik is a business journalist with over six years of experience covering startups, entrepreneurship, and emerging trends. She has previously worked with leading media platforms such as YourStory Media and BW BusinessWorld, where she reported on business, policy, and market developments. Currently, she serves as Editor at The Inspirepreneur Magazine, where she writes and edits stories across business, lifestyle, and travel, with a focus on clarity, accuracy, and reader relevance.
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