Anthropic has signed its first Australian data center lease, marking a major step in the AI company’s expansion across the country’s digital infrastructure market. The agreement covers capacity at the proposed Western Downs Digital Park in Queensland, according to Australian media reports. Singapore-based Zerra DC, an AGP-backed data center developer, is developing the project and expects capacity to begin coming online in 2027. The Western Downs Digital Park will form a large-scale digital and energy precinct near Dalby, about 250 kilometers northwest of Brisbane.
Zerra DC has proposed up to four phases across a 725.5-hectare site, with the complete development targeting a projected peak capacity of 2.16 gigawatts. That scale would place the project among Australia’s largest proposed data center developments while connecting computing demand with major electricity-generation and transmission infrastructure. Capital Brief reported that Anthropic will use the facility for AI inference rather than model training, creating a clear distinction between the infrastructure deal and Australia’s intensifying debate over AI training data. Neither Anthropic nor Zerra DC had publicly announced the lease when the reports emerged.
Queensland Project Built Around Power and Inference
The Western Downs development centers on access to substantial power infrastructure, including the Braemar substation and nearby generation assets. ABC reported that the broader project could consume as much as 47 gigawatt-hours of electricity each day at full build-out, underscoring the demands that large AI workloads can place on regional power systems. That requirement gives the project significance beyond the data center sector because its expansion will depend heavily on electricity availability and supporting infrastructure. The scale also reflects the growing push to locate AI computing where power resources can support sustained high-density workloads.
The project targets AI-ready infrastructure rather than a conventional enterprise computing footprint. Reuters reported that the planned site will use renewable energy and a closed-loop, air-cooled system, reducing its reliance on water-intensive cooling. That design could become increasingly relevant as Australian authorities and communities scrutinize the electricity and resource requirements associated with hyperscale AI infrastructure. Reuters also reported that the project still requires regulatory consideration, including review by Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board.
Zerra DC has separately lodged plans for the Western Downs Digital Park and describes it as a proposed digital, energy and computing hub with multiple AI-ready data center phases. The development combines power infrastructure with computing capacity within a master-planned framework. Its four-phase structure could allow the operator to scale capacity alongside demand rather than bring the entire proposed footprint online at once. For Anthropic, that model offers a potential path to expand inference capacity as AI usage grows across the Australian market.
Copyright Debate Adds A Different Layer
The Australian Financial Review separately reported that documents under consideration by Attorney-General Michelle Rowland included a proposal allowing AI companies to access unprotected internet material for training after meeting a mandatory data-access quota. The document excerpt reported by AFR states: “Once the Mandatory Data Access Arrangements quota has been met, AI companies can access statutory permission/safe harbour to use unprotected material on the internet for training purposes only. No additional [money] would be payable to creators or rights holders beyond deals negotiated to achieve quota.” The proposal has intensified attention on how Australia could balance AI development with compensation and control for creators.
The timing places Anthropic’s infrastructure expansion alongside a much broader policy debate, although the Queensland facility would handle inference rather than training. Australia’s government has previously said it was preparing for AI-related copyright challenges while rejecting a broad text-and-data-mining exception that could allow companies to train AI systems freely on Australian creators’ works. Those policy discussions concern how AI companies obtain and use training material, while Anthropic’s reported Queensland arrangement concerns the infrastructure required to run AI services.
Australia’s AI Infrastructure Race Moves Forward
Anthropic’s reported lease highlights a broader shift in AI infrastructure from centralized model development toward geographically distributed inference capacity. Data center developers now face a combination of power availability, AI computing demand and resource constraints when planning large-scale facilities. Inference workloads require sustained computing performance close to users, making location increasingly important as AI applications move into everyday commercial and enterprise environments. The Queensland project consequently represents more than another large power reservation; it reflects the infrastructure requirements emerging around AI services.
Australia is also seeking to attract AI investment while determining how new computing infrastructure should interact with copyright, energy and resource policy. The Western Downs Digital Park sits directly at that intersection, with its eventual scale depending on approvals, power infrastructure and the rollout of its planned phases. Anthropic’s reported lease would give the project a major AI customer and provide a potential anchor for its inference strategy in Australia. However, the wider development remains subject to the regulatory and infrastructure milestones required to turn its proposed capacity into operating computing resources.
