Goodman is developing a 725-hectare AI data center campus in rural Queensland, Australia.

From the veranda of his bush-block home, Denver Kanowski has watched resources companies come and go from rural Queensland for 70 years. The property cost him $800 and allows him to live as he chooses, surrounded by nature—though it sits squarely in the middle of a gasfield, near a former Linc Energy contamination site, downwind from a coalmine and three gas power plants.

Last month brought the largest scheme yet: a $31 billion datacentre to power Claude, Anthropic's large language model. If built, Australia's largest datacentre would sit just 15 minutes' drive from Kanowski's home, outside Kogan near Dalby, roughly 180 kilometres west of Brisbane. For a community scarred by the boom-and-bust cycle of coal seam gas, the response echoed Kanowski's skepticism. "This is the power of money and the power of greed and shortsighted stupidity," he said. "I've read this book before."

Anthropic's project will occupy 725 hectares of land currently used as a 24,000-head feedlot, surrounded by gas wells. According to Singapore-based developer Zerra DC, its cooling system will be far less water-intensive than most existing datacentres, requiring about the same water demand as an average shopping centre. But like all AI infrastructure, it will demand enormous energy. The Western Downs datacentre requires a peak power capacity of 2.16GW—roughly a quarter of total state energy demand. The company projects thousands of construction jobs and about 1,400 permanent positions.

The proposal became public last month. Within days, Dalby travel agent Mordechai Winters had decided he opposed it. "I was crushed. You know, it's very disappointing that the council and also the government would consider it," he said. In the United States, energy demand, noise and poor siting have sparked massive backlash against datacentres; three-quarters of Americans now oppose them, and more than 500 counties have imposed bans. Thousands of Australians share this view. A petition Winters helped launch gathered over 21,500 signatures—mostly from the local area—in just weeks. Winters believes the project's benefits are exaggerated and will trigger the same boom-bust cycle as the gas industry.

Cecil Plains farmer Liza Balmain remembers the grand, ultimately unfulfilled promises when the gas industry arrived. The scale and pace of change was "likely unprecedented anywhere in the world," academics later concluded. Massive worker influxes followed, with gas wages drawing labour from farms and local businesses. But because maintaining gas wells requires far fewer workers than drilling them, the industry departed as swiftly as it arrived, leaving business owners with debts on investments they no longer needed. Academic assessments differ—some believe the industry left the region worse off; others see a slim net positive. Balmain, who led a long campaign against coal seam gas, sees "huge similarities" between that era and the proposed datacentre.

National concern is mounting. Jo Shulman, CEO of the Environmental Defenders Office, which has long assisted communities fighting resources projects like coal seam gas, reported a 250 per cent increase in datacentre-related queries to its free legal advice line since January. "I would say the datacentre is the new frontier," she said. "Communities are concerned about impacts on the environment and their wellbeing." Shulman acknowledged that datacentres will be essential to the clean energy transition but called for a pause to allow national standards to catch up. "We think that there should be a moratorium on any further datacentres, or they risk repeating the same things that we saw with the coal seam gas boom," she said.

Dalby Mayor Andrew Smith initially stated that the Western Downs regional council—serving a population of 35,452—would retain ultimate authority over the region's largest ever project. But days later, the state government announced it would remove datacentres from local council oversight, implementing a new planning framework to ensure "a consistent and transparent framework across the state," mirroring its renewables policy. "We will treat these projects no worse and no better than we do mining, renewables or tourism projects," a spokesperson for planning minister Jarrod Bleijie said. "The state government will become the responsible assessor and coordinator of any data centre applications, instead of local councils."

Smith argues that if approved, the project will deliver greater value to the community than coal seam gas. "In general, the coal seam gas industry has been wonderful for our region. It's diversified our economy, which we talk about a lot. It's created jobs," he said. "Prior to coal seam gas, we were exporting a lot of our clever kids, because the opportunities weren't back in the region." Anthropic aims to begin using the centre as early as next year, but Smith warned that planning cannot be rushed and stopped short of endorsing or opposing the project.

Queensland Premier David Crisafulli lobbied the company during a recent trade mission. "They see the same opportunity I do, and that opportunity is to make sure that there are jobs, very good jobs in regional areas, and if we get it right, lower power bills for every other Queenslander as well," he told parliament. "I see a really good play with that."

Jo Sheppard, chief executive of Toowoomba and Surat Basin Enterprise, said most residents hadn't yet decided on the project but emphasized the importance of maintaining social licence. She called it "a once in a generation opportunity for Western Downs region and our broader region," with potential to transform the town from a "fairly quiet" farming community into something more, echoing booms triggered by gas and renewables. "Someone actually did say to me the other day: 'Gosh, should we all be buying a house in Dalby?'" she noted.

Kanowski sees something fundamentally different about the datacentre. Beyond environmental harm, he believes it will enable an online "fantasy" world that disconnects people from what genuinely matters. "[The datacentre developers] don't even see the trees. They don't understand the relationship between all the things. This is my world, I love it," he said. "This is not a datacentre. This is part of a network that these money-crazed idiots are planning to put all over the planet."