At a glance
GIC and funds managed by Macquarie Asset Management will own Theseus Infrastructure and lease its data centres to Anthropic under long-term agreements.
Anthropic contracts capacity from AWS, Google Cloud and developers including Fluidstack, and Theseus is the first platform built to hold buildings for it.
Apollo and Blackstone arranged about US$35 billion in June for vehicles that buy Google chips and lease them to Anthropic.
Anthropic's Australian tender put financing capability first, asking five operators to raise US$12 billion to US$15 billion.
Whether comparable equity appears in Australia before Anthropic's mid-2027 capacity deadline is still open.
GIC and Macquarie Asset Management announced Theseus Infrastructure on 10 August 2026, a platform the two investors will own and lease to Anthropic as anchor tenant. The release names no capacity, value, sites or timeline. Anthropic is also running a 1.4GW tender in Australia whose scoring put financing capability above land and power, and Theseus shows the capital structure Anthropic assembles when it writes the terms itself.
Anthropic's compute sits with cloud providers, neoclouds and developers under contract. Apollo Global Management and Blackstone Credit and Insurance arranged roughly US$35 billion in June against Broadcom's investment-grade rating, and Google guarantees lease payments on five sites Fluidstack is developing. Theseus extends that approach from chips to real estate, and it arrives while CDC Data Centres, AirTrunk, NEXTDC, IREN and Stack Infrastructure are being scored on their own ability to raise the equivalent capital in Australia.
Anthropic committed US$50bn to Texas and New York sites
Anthropic trains and serves Claude across Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud, with additional capacity from CoreWeave and Akamai and leased sites at TeraWulf, Hut 8 and SpaceX. The US$50 billion commitment announced in November 2025 covers custom AI data centre sites in Texas and New York that Fluidstack develops and Anthropic occupies, with the first coming online through 2026.
Anthropic raised US$65 billion in its Series H at a US$965 billion post-money valuation, then filed confidentially for a listing on 1 June 2026. Theseus adds a dedicated landlord to that mix, with GIC and Macquarie funding the equity.
Apollo and Blackstone arranged US$35bn against Broadcom's rating
Anthropic's chip financing runs through special purpose vehicles that buy the processors and lease them to Anthropic, a structure described in reporting rather than in the arrangers' releases. Apollo's own release describes a capital solution for Broadcom's AI XPU platform supporting more than 20GW of compute. The first closed in June 2026 at about US$35 billion, with senior notes functionally carrying Broadcom's investment-grade rating through a residual value backstop, and a US$4.5 billion Class B tranche pricing at roughly 8.5 per cent without it. A second package of roughly US$36 billion was reported in early August covering sites in New York, Texas, Louisiana and Indiana.
Google's support runs alongside it. Google guarantees lease payments across five US data centres developed by Fluidstack and holds about 20 per cent of a combined Texas data centre and power project built around a 1.6GW generation plant. Bonds carrying Fluidstack leases, issued by TeraWulf, Cipher, Hut 8 and a Next Frontier joint venture with Fluidstack, have raised more than US$15 billion. Google is Anthropic's investor, chip supplier and now credit support, and each role gives it reason to underwrite the buildout.
GIC and Macquarie take the equity in Theseus
Theseus changes which party holds the completed asset. GIC and funds managed by Macquarie Asset Management own the platform and provide the majority of equity for each project, developing and leasing the buildings to Anthropic on long-term agreements. Anthropic will also cover electricity price increases that consumers may otherwise face from these sites.
Our analysis of Blackstone's debt-to-equity playbook at Firmus set out the screen Blackstone applies: contracted platforms anchored by investment-grade tenants, builders with committed offtake, and owners willing to recycle capital. Anthropic supplies the offtake, Broadcom's platform and Google's guarantees have carried the credit, and Theseus adds owners in GIC and Macquarie. When we examined Blackstone's US$5 billion Google TPU cloud venture, the open question was whether Blackstone would route capacity through AirTrunk's Australian footprint. Anthropic has commissioned a new platform instead of leasing from an existing one.
Macquarie and PSP sold AirTrunk above A$24bn in 2024
Macquarie Asset Management bought into AirTrunk in 2020 alongside PSP Investments, when the operator ran five data centres across Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong at 450MW. By 2024 AirTrunk held 11 sites including Japan and Malaysia at more than 1.8GW, and the two investors sold 88 per cent to a Blackstone-led consortium with CPP Investments at an implied enterprise value above A$24 billion. AirTrunk remains the only Australian operator in 2026's global data centre M&A top ten, appearing twice.
AirTrunk is now Blackstone-owned and bidding for Anthropic's Australian capacity. Anthropic will anchor a new US platform funded by Macquarie Asset Management, which sold its AirTrunk stake in December 2024. GIC brings comparable experience, having formed a joint venture with Equinix and CPP Investments valued above US$15 billion in October 2024 to develop xScale capacity in the United States, holding 37.5 per cent alongside CPP Investments.
Macquarie Asset Management is the infrastructure arm of Macquarie Group, and a separate business from Macquarie Technology Group, the ASX-listed operator building toward 200MW at Macquarie Park.
Chips, buildings and Australian capacity compared
Arrangement | Who holds the asset | Disclosed scale |
|---|---|---|
Theseus Infrastructure, 10 August 2026 | GIC and funds managed by Macquarie Asset Management | Not disclosed |
Chip lease vehicles, June and August 2026 | Special purpose vehicles, with senior debt rated on Broadcom's profile | About US$35 billion, plus a reported US$36 billion |
Australian tender, 2026 | Third-party operators, with Anthropic leasing under multi-year price locks | At least 1.4GW sought, up to US$15 billion (about A$21.6 billion) |
Source: Certified Strategic Editorial, from Macquarie Asset Management and Anthropic disclosures and reported financing terms, August 2026.
The Australian tender ranked financing above land and power
Anthropic's Australian request for proposal carried an 11-point checklist headed by financial capability. As we reported when Anthropic moved to buy 1.4GW of Australian capacity, bidders had to show how they would secure US$12 billion to US$15 billion in debt and equity, ahead of land banks, delivery record and secured energy. Five operators received it, the work leans toward four or five contracts with the largest share at roughly 500MW, and CDC Data Centres has been reported as front-runner.
All five are competing on the criterion Anthropic has spent 2026 solving offshore, with Broadcom's rating, Google's guarantee and now GIC and Macquarie's equity. CDC Data Centres carries an A$18.5 billion valuation and a contracted pipeline to bid from, and NEXTDC and AirTrunk have their own capital programmes, all while the AEMO connection queue has reached 9GW and the rest of Australia's data centre fleet competes for the same connection points.
New York paused permits for 50MW data centres in July
New York issued Executive Order No. 62 on 14 July 2026, holding discretionary Department of Environmental Conservation permits in abeyance for data centres drawing 50MW or more, until the Department of Public Service completes a generic environmental impact statement. Manufacturing, research, education and medical facilities are exempt. The order reaches applications DEC had not deemed complete before it was signed, so a project already building can still be caught. More than a dozen states are weighing similar measures.
Anthropic has committed to cover electricity price increases that consumers may otherwise face from Theseus sites, which answers the cost question those measures raise. Australian retail electricity prices reset on 1 July 2026, with South Australia the only state recording an increase.
What to watch
The Australian contracts. Anthropic targeted July 2026 for first signatures against a requirement for at least 1GW live by the end of 2027, and none has been announced. Its position here also turns on an unresolved copyright arrangement covering AI training.
Australian equity. Anthropic told local developers in July it would buy any capacity deliverable by the middle of 2027, which is under a year away. Whether an Australian institution takes the position GIC and Macquarie have taken offshore is the question the tender will answer.