Anthropic signs first Australian data center lease at A$32 billion Queensland campus, pending FIRB approval

Anthropic is putting down roots in Australia. Bloomberg reports that the AI company plans to invest in Australian data centers to expand its capacity. The first concrete step is a lease at the proposed Western Downs Digital Park in Queensland. It was confirmed in the state parliament on September 16, 2026, and it is a sizable commitment. What Anthropic actually signed Anthropic, the company behind the Claude large language model, has signed its first data center lease in the country. The site sits near the towns of Dalby and Kogan in Queensland’s Western Downs region. The lease covers the campus’s initial phase. The broader project is led by Zerra DC, a Singapore-based developer. Its partners are Australian Data Centres, which is controlled by Dexus, and Macquarie Capital. The full campus could eventually support 1.44 GW of IT capacity, with peak power consumption of 2.16 GW. That capacity would be spread across four buildings, each rated at 360 MW, on a 725-hectare site. The projected total investment for the campus is between A$31.9 billion and A$32 billion. The project aims to become Australia’s largest data center. A development application for a preliminary phase has already b...