At a glance
Anthropic is open to negotiating to set aside a "certain amount of compute", "within bounds", for Australian government priorities, its international special envoy Jeff Bleich said in Sydney on 13 October 2026.
He was responding to Parliament's cross-party AI committee, which asked the government on 12 October to have AI labs operating in Australia reserve part of their computing capacity for the national interest.
Asked about independent assessors getting early access to Anthropic's models, which the Financial Review described as another request in the letter, Bleich said the company was "big on" outside evaluation of its work.
No Australian state is "out of contention" for Anthropic's future data centres, Bleich said, with state premiers bringing the company projects and regional or brownfield sites preferred.
Anthropic wants its Australian sites powered by renewable energy, though gas "could" be considered, the Australian Financial Review reported.
Anthropic is open to negotiating to reserve part of its Australian computing power for government priorities, a day after Parliament's AI committee recommended that labs do so. Jeff Bleich, the company's international special envoy and a former United States ambassador to Australia, made the remarks at the Australian Financial Review's Energy and Climate Summit in Sydney on 13 October 2026, as the paper reported the same day.
They are Anthropic's public answer to two of the committee's requests of frontier labs operating in Australia: a share of compute set aside for national needs, and outside scrutiny of new models. Bleich also set out where the company wants to build next, and said no state is out of contention, Bloomberg reported.
Anthropic's only reported Australian lease is at Kogan in Queensland, and the company has told Parliament its leased sites will add new generation and pay their full grid costs. A share of its compute for government use would be a new term on top of those.
Bleich says compute could be set aside "within bounds"
The government was not going to "chip in" on building future data centres, Bleich said, according to the Financial Review. As part of establishing trust, Anthropic was instead open to negotiating to set aside a "certain amount of compute", "within bounds".
"We'd be open to that sort of proposal because at the end of the day, we're bringing a lot of compute to the country," Bleich said. "We want the country to be successful."
He said that if there were things that would make Australia "stronger, healthier, safer and more prosperous", Anthropic could be "part of that solution with the government". The Financial Review cited healthcare as one such priority, and reported that the committee had not put forward a mechanism for securing the capacity.
The committee wants compute reserved for national security operations and university research, and says health and social services could also share it. It asked for "a certain amount of overall compute capacity" in any arrangement where frontier and other labs operate in Australia.
Parliament's AI committee wants a share of lab compute
The Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence put the request in a letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed by Labor chair Jo Briskey and Liberal deputy chair Senator Jonathon Duniam. The same letter urged a national policy to encourage investment in Australian data centres and asked for early model access for agencies such as the Australian Signals Directorate where labs train models here.
Compute access has been on the government's list since March 2026. The fifth of the national expectations of data centre and AI infrastructure developers asks hyperscalers and neoclouds to open capacity to Australian start-ups, researchers and not-for-profits on favourable terms, and Assistant Minister Andrew Charlton made the case for it in August. The Office of AI's consultation paper on national standards for data centres and frontier AI, released on 17 September 2026, listed a compute reservation scheme as one way to secure contributions from frontier AI developers.
Anthropic welcomes outside assessors of its models
"We're big on having independent assessors evaluate our work," Bleich said, when asked how Anthropic would respond to a requirement that independent assessors get early access to its models.
He pointed to Mythos, the model Anthropic previewed in April 2026 and shared with a limited group of partners under Project Glasswing rather than releasing it to the public. "We worked with close partners, including here in Australia, so they could identify their vulnerabilities and patch them and make themselves more secure," he said.
Bleich said Anthropic would keep giving Australian partners the kind of early access it gave them on Mythos. "We brought them into the tent on the technology. We'd be happy to continue to do that kind of work, as well as work with the Australian AI Safety Institute," he said.
The committee tied its early-access condition for security agencies to labs that train models in Australia. Labs have told it that copyright settings are a barrier to training here, and Anthropic's Western Downs site will run Claude for users rather than train it, the Financial Review has reported.
Anthropic's next data centres could go in any state
Any compute set aside for government would run in the data centres Anthropic is still lining up in Australia, and Bleich told the summit those could be in any state. "I don't think there's any state that's out of contention," he said, according to Bloomberg, adding that several projects had been pitched to the company by state premiers. "We've literally had a number of projects brought to us," he said, as the Financial Review reported.
Anthropic prefers regional or brownfield sites away from large population centres, Bloomberg reported. Bleich acknowledged that data centres can be a "source of real tension and friction".
The two Australian campuses Anthropic has been linked to fit that brief. Its lease at Zerra DC's Western Downs Digital Park sits on a regional site at Kogan, north-west of Dalby, and the Financial Review reported on 22 September that it was in advanced talks to anchor AirTrunk's 540MW campus on the former Kurri Kurri aluminium smelter site in the NSW Hunter. People briefed on its plans told the paper then that the company was working on at least four Australian leases due in the coming weeks.
Anthropic wants its data centres powered by renewable energy, though Bleich said gas "could" be considered, and its centres would use little to no water to cool servers, the Financial Review reported. The paper listed commitments the company has made to win community support, including investing in local communities, limiting equipment noise, adding new power generation and a plan to cover electricity price increases from its data centres. It has told the committee that its leased sites will pay the full cost of their grid connections.
Google's head of Asia Pacific infrastructure and energy, Alexander Smith, told the same summit that Google is "increasingly convinced" that building renewable generation and data centres side by side is feasible in Australia, Bloomberg reported.
Will reserved compute make it into a deal?
Anthropic envoy Jeff Bleich said the government would not "chip in" on building data centres, and that Anthropic was open to setting aside a share of its compute instead, "within bounds". Parliament's AI committee has asked for that share in any arrangement where labs operate in Australia, and the Office of AI listed a compute reservation scheme as one option in its 17 September consultation paper.
People briefed on Anthropic's plans told the Financial Review in September that it was working on at least four Australian leases to be announced in the coming weeks.
We expect Anthropic to announce a compute set-aside for the Australian Government alongside one of those leases, because it has said it is open to one and Parliament's AI committee wants a reservation wherever labs operate here.
What to watch
The size and price of a reservation. Bleich said Anthropic was open to setting aside compute "within bounds", and the committee asked for an adequate amount. The share, its price and the agencies that draw on it are terms for the committee's final report, due by 30 November 2026, and any negotiation with government.
Anthropic's next leases. The Financial Review reported in September that at least four were due within weeks. A lease outside Queensland and New South Wales would bear out Bleich's line that no state is out of contention.
The national standards bill. National Cabinet agreed on 26 August 2026 that the Commonwealth would work with the states and territories on consistent mandatory standards for data centre energy, water and land use, with legislation planned for early 2027.