Anthropic secures its inaugural Australian data center agreement in Queensland to host regional AI inference workloads.

Artificial intelligence heavyweight Anthropic has secured its first Australian data centre agreement, signing lease documentation for the initial phase of a proposed $31.9 billion hyperscale campus near Dalby, Queensland. The Claude developer will become a major customer of the planned Western Downs Digital Park, a project that could evolve into Australia’s largest data centre and dramatically expand the computing infrastructure available to the country’s growing artificial intelligence sector.

Singapore-based Zerra DC is leading the campus development alongside a consortium that includes Macquarie Capital and Australian Data Centres, which is 85% owned by ASX-listed property group Dexus Ltd. Dexus confirmed it has entered into lease documentation with an Australian Anthropic subsidiary for the project’s first stage, subject to customary approvals.

Anthropic expects to utilise the Queensland computing capacity primarily to run Claude inference—processing users’ questions and generating responses—rather than training its underlying AI models. The company is targeting operations from 2027, although the project remains contingent on planning and regulatory approvals, including consideration by the Foreign Investment Review Board.

At full development, the Western Downs Digital Park would feature a peak electricity capacity of about 2.16 gigawatts, comparable with the average power needs of around 1.5 million Australian households. That scale underlines one of the most significant challenges facing the global artificial intelligence industry: securing sufficient electricity and computing infrastructure to support the rapidly growing adoption of generative AI. The proposed 725-hectare development could take four to six years to complete and would be constructed adjacent to existing energy infrastructure in Queensland’s Western Downs region.

Anthropic’s decision places Australia firmly within the accelerating global race to build the physical infrastructure behind artificial intelligence. Companies developing models such as Claude increasingly require vast fleets of advanced processors, alongside data centres capable of supplying the electricity, cooling, and network capacity needed to operate them. The Queensland project also highlights the growing tension between attracting AI investment and managing its energy footprint. While the Western Downs facility could substantially increase electricity demand across the state, local residents and environmental groups have raised concerns regarding power generation methods and the project’s broader impact.

Queensland Premier David Crisafulli has argued that major data centre developments can bring new generation capacity, investment, and jobs into regional areas. For Australia, Anthropic’s arrival serves as another indication that the global artificial intelligence race is moving beyond software and chips—and is increasingly becoming a contest over land, electricity, and data centre capacity.