Anthropic has agreed to lease space in what is set to become Australia's largest datacentre, a A$31.9bn project in western Queensland, marking the AI company's first major Australian investment. Queensland premier David Crisafulli announced the deal in parliament, calling it a "major win" secured after pitching the state's energy security and streamlined approvals during a trade mission, and said it would create jobs and add capacity to the state's power grid.

The Western Downs digital park, near Dalby, is being developed by Singapore-based Zerra DC and will connect to the Braemar power station, with its first stage due to open next year across four planned stages; the Anthropic-linked portion covers about 725.5 hectares currently partly used as a cattle feedlot, and the project still requires approval from Western Downs regional council. The centre will handle "inference" work rather than training Anthropic's models, and follows a Memorandum of Understanding the company signed with the federal government in April. Queensland has also secured a carve-out allowing coal power to run new AI datacentres despite a national push for renewables, a decision Crisafulli welcomed, even as Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei this week repeated his call for AI development to slow down.