Anthropic Signs Lease for $32 Billion Queensland Data Centre, But Financial Terms Still Undisclosed

Anthropic just landed its first data centre deal in Australia, and Queensland Premier David Crisafulli wasted no time taking a victory lap in Parliament on Wednesday.

"To have secured Anthropic's first major investment in Australia is a massive show of confidence in Queensland," Crisafulli told lawmakers, according to The Guardian. "It's a major win that will deliver more jobs and put more energy into Queensland's grid."

The deal covers the Western Downs Digital Park, a proposed AI computing hub near Dalby, about 250 kilometers northwest of Brisbane. It's being built by Singapore-based developer Zerra DC on roughly 725 hectares of land currently home in part to a cattle feedlot, according to The Guardian and Brisbane Times.

The numbers are big. Planning documents put the total project cost at $31.9 billion Australian dollars, according to The Guardian, making it roughly five times the infrastructure budget for the 2032 Brisbane Olympics per Brisbane Times. ABC News reports the site's eventual power draw could rival 1.5 million average Australian households, while The Next Web, citing Reuters, put planned capacity at 2.16 gigawatts, enough to rank among the largest computing campuses anywhere.

Crisafulli's press conference didn't dwell on one detail: nobody has confirmed what Anthropic is actually paying. The Next Web, citing Reuters sources familiar with the matter, reported that "neither the value or financial terms nor the length of the lease was disclosed." The $31.9-32 billion figure circulating in most Australian coverage refers to the total cost of building the entire four-stage digital park, not a confirmed price tag on Anthropic's specific lease. Straits Times and ABC repeated the headline dollar figure without drawing that distinction clear for readers.

Anthropic will use the site for inference, meaning it will run its already-trained Claude model to answer user questions, not train new models, according to Brisbane Times, The Next Web and ABC News alike. The facility connects directly to the high-voltage grid through the Braemar substation, with an on-site battery system for grid stability, per Brisbane Times.

Approvals still pending, first stage still gas-powered

Despite the announcement, this is not a done deal. The lease requires sign-off from Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board, according to ABC News and The Next Web. The Western Downs Regional Council also has to approve the development application, which was only filed last month, according to The Guardian. Mayor Andrew Smith told The Guardian the council would conduct a "thorough and comprehensive assessment process," with no set timeline.

Anthropic is targeting a 2027 opening for the first stage, according to ABC News and Straits Times. That's an aggressive timeline given the approvals still outstanding.

The power source is also a live political fight. Brisbane Times reported that planning documents show the first stage could run on gas, with three major gas-fired power plants within two kilometers of the site. That's notable because the federal Labor government, led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, had pushed in July for new data centres nationwide to be anchored by new renewable energy projects. Queensland and the Northern Territory refused and won a carve-out letting them power AI infrastructure with coal and gas, according to The Guardian.

Crisafulli framed that carve-out as a matter of state sovereignty. "I also want to acknowledge the commonsense decision endorsed by the prime minister to allow Queensland to chart its own path for power supply," he said, per Brisbane Times. Anthropic has told officials it plans to eventually secure a long-term power purchase agreement that adds wind or solar capacity to the grid, according to a source described by Brisbane Times as familiar with the deal but not authorized to speak publicly.

Advocates for the renewable mandate argue that letting new AI infrastructure lean on coal and gas locks in fossil-fuel demand for decades just as the grid is supposed to be decarbonizing, and that a carve-out for one state undercuts the point of a national standard. No source here shows the Queensland deal violating any actual law. Albanese approved the exemption. Crisafulli's argument, that a state which owns its own power generation and transmission assets should get to set its own energy mix, is the one the Commonwealth ultimately accepted.

Water use has drawn less controversy. Zerra DC's planning documents say the site will rely primarily on air-cooled technology, with water use comparable to a standard office building, according to Straits Times and ABC News.

Anthropic's Queensland move follows a pattern. The company, led by CEO Dario Amodei, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Australian government in April and has been circling the country since a March visit to Canberra, according to The Next Web, which also reported Anthropic separately asked New South Wales officials about installing up to 5 gigawatts of AI training capacity based on emails obtained by the ABC. Brisbane Times noted Amodei has publicly warned the AI industry needs to slow down until safety measures catch up.

Anthropic has also lobbied Canberra to loosen copyright rules to make it easier to train AI models on Australian content. Straits Times reports that push has drawn a backlash from media companies, musicians and other creators. That fight, the pending FIRB and council reviews, and Albanese's promised national rules on data centre water and energy use near homes, schools and farmland all remain unresolved as the Western Downs project moves toward its targeted 2027 opening.