Anthropic signs land‑lease for 2.16 GW data‑centre campus near Brisbane
The campus, planned on agricultural land about 250 kilometres from Brisbane, would begin operations in 2027 and focus on inference workloads.
Anthropic has signed its first land-lease in Australia for a data‑centre campus that would have a planned total power capacity of 2.16 gigawatts, people familiar with the agreement said. The site, on agricultural land roughly 250 kilometres from Brisbane, is expected to begin operations in 2027.
Project details and local context
The lease covers a multi‑site data‑centre campus to be developed by Zera DC, an investor headquartered in Singapore. Zera DC would arrange renewable power purchase agreements and cover the grid‑connection costs so those expenses do not fall on existing consumers, the people said.
According to the people involved, the facility would be used for inference — rapid, prediction‑based processing — but not for training machine‑learning models. The design would employ a closed‑loop air‑cooling system to reduce the need for mains freshwater when removing heat from servers.
Anthropic’s move follows a wave of activity by large AI companies securing land and energy in Australia. OpenAI reached power and capacity agreements for a Sydney data centre last year, and rivals are competing to secure sites and renewable energy in a market pitched as a lower‑cost, renewable‑rich alternative to the more saturated US and Asian markets.
Australian authorities have faced public concern about data centres’ use of land, water and electricity. The government has said it will introduce limits on resource use by data centres from 2027, while still trying to attract an investment boom that economists say could reach A$150 billion (US$107 billion) by 2030.
The land‑lease is subject to approval by Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board. The agreement is the latest example of a rapid build‑out of capacity even as some AI leaders urge caution: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei last week called on AI companies to "slow the pace" of capability development; that appeal was echoed by Elon Musk of xAI and Sam Altman of OpenAI. U.S. President Donald Trump described AI critics as "very negative forces" who outline scenarios he said "will not happen."
More broadly, opposition to data‑centre construction has grown in other countries as well: more than 500 U.S. cities and counties have put projects on hold or blocked new builds.
Photo: ilustracija / Wikimedia commons
