Anthropic signs first Australian data centre lease

Anthropic has signed its first lease for data center capacity in Australia, at a site on a campus planned for farmland, about 250km west of Brisbane, according to Reuters, which cited two people familiar with the deal. 

The site on which the data center will be built belongs to a Singapore-based developer, likely Zerra DC, and plans are to reach 2.16 GW, close enough to rank among the largest computing campuses.

Also, neither the value or financial terms nor the length of the lease was disclosed, and the deal still needs sign-off from Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board. 

What we know so far is that the facility will handle only inference, or rapid, prediction-based processing, running models that have already been trained rather than training new ones, the same sources told Reuters. 

But this news is not new to Anthropic, as the company spent most of the year circling Australia. In a visit to Canberra in March, Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, signed a government memorandum of understanding, saying it was “exploring investments in data center infrastructure and energy throughout the country.”

Emails later obtained by the ABC showed that, before the same trip, the company had asked New South Wales officials about installing up to 5GW of AI training capacity in the state. 

For Anthropic, the recent lease in Queensland is the latest in a series of significant infrastructure investments, following a substantial $45bn Nscale deal in Britain and a 20-year Riot contract in the US. 

The project’s location puts it at the center of Australia’s debate over who should pay to power these facilities. Canberra is working on national energy rules that would make large data centers buy electricity from new renewable projects.

Meanwhile, Queensland Premier David Crisafulli wants standards that still allow for gas and coal. Zerra’s site is next to three gas-fired power stations, as well as solar and wind farms.

Before any of this can happen, Canberra’s foreign investment regulator needs to approve the deal, and the Dalby council must also agree.