At a glance

  • Anthropic has signed a long-term lease at Zerra DC's Western Downs Digital Park near Dalby, the Financial Review reported on 16 September 2026, with no capacity figure disclosed.
  • Premier David Crisafulli met Anthropic and OpenAI in California, the Courier Mail reported on 3 September 2026, with an offer of power from Queensland's own generators.
  • Up to 1,500 workers would build the campus and up to 1,400 run it at full capacity, on the Financial Review's account.
  • Western Downs Regional Council is assessing the application, which the ABC reported on 14 September 2026 could take years to approve.
  • The campus is expected to run Anthropic's Claude models for users rather than train them, which the paper says lets the company bypass the copyright debate.

The Australian Financial Review reported on 16 September 2026 that Anthropic has signed a long-term lease at the Western Downs Digital Park in southern Queensland. The paper calls it Anthropic's first lease to use an Australian data centre to run its model, and its first commitment since a tender for at least 1.4GW of Australian capacity was reported in July. At 1.4GW that tender is close to the whole Australian operating fleet, a step-change in demand, and no contract under it had been announced before 16 September.

The site is in Queensland, thirteen days after the Courier Mail had the state's Premier in California putting an offer to the same company. The state government is not a party to the lease, which is between Anthropic and Zerra. A 725.5-hectare campus 250km west of Brisbane, on the ABC's measure, has signed Anthropic as its tenant, with up to 1,400 people running it at full capacity on the Financial Review's account.

Crisafulli made the pitch in California

The Courier Mail reported on 3 September 2026 that David Crisafulli met Anthropic and OpenAI during a trade mission to California, offering power from the state's own generators on two conditions, that developers pay for the extra generation and that campuses go outside built-up areas. No agreement was signed at the time. The paper names Anthropic's special envoy Jeff Bleich, a former United States ambassador to Australia, and reports Anthropic agreeing in a joint communique to work with the state "to explore data centre opportunities in Queensland".

Queensland is one of four jurisdictions that still owns its power stations, alongside Tasmania, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. It dissented from the energy ministers' communique on 28 July 2026, and Energy Minister Chris Bowen said on 23 August that Canberra would legislate the rules without it. At National Cabinet on 26 August 2026 first ministers agreed the Commonwealth will write mandatory national standards for data centre energy, water and land use, and the trade publication The Energy reported the agreed wording letting a jurisdiction use state-owned generation where it has clear benefits to grid stability and lower customer prices. A scorecard of six Queensland locations published on 31 August 2026 tested them on land, power, connectivity, water and workforce. Kogan sits well outside the cities where most data centres in Australia are built.

Whether Queensland's generators end up selling into Kogan is unsettled, and the Financial Review reports Anthropic would look for long-term agreements with wind, solar and storage projects to match the site's demand with new renewable supply. Zerra filed the Kogan application on 17 August 2026, before the California trip was reported, so the state's offer and this lease sit separately on the record. What Queensland has either way is the tenant.

What the 1.4GW tender asked for

Anthropic signed a memorandum with the Australian Government on 31 March 2026, and by 11 June it was courting developers to build what would be the country's largest data centre. The confidential request for proposals the Financial Review's Street Talk column reported on 5 July 2026 put at least 1.4GW in play. The build was costed at up to US$15 billion, about A$21.6 billion, and Anthropic wanted at least 1GW in use by the end of 2027. The request went to CDC Data Centres, AirTrunk, NEXTDC, IREN and Stack Infrastructure among others. A separate and earlier process for 300 to 500MW ran alongside it, and CDC was reported front-runner on that one in late June. Who reached the shorter list invited to Canberra in April was not reported, and the Financial Review describes Kogan as Anthropic's first commitment since the tender was revealed rather than as an award under it.

Street Talk quoted the tender document recognising that a likely outcome is identifying a development partner without a fully developed site, and envisioning jointly identifying and developing one. Zerra had chosen Kogan, designed it and filed it with Western Downs Regional Council four weeks before this lease was reported.

Zerra DC is a Singapore developer owned by the investment manager AGP. Its other Australian project, on the former Ford plant at Campbellfield in Melbourne, was filed in April 2026. The Kogan site is 725.5 hectares 37km north west of Dalby, 600 metres from the Braemar substation, and the Financial Review says it was chosen for its position near gas plants, a solar farm and transmission infrastructure. The four buildings in the application come to 1.44GW, and an engineering report inside it sets out a design for six, which the ABC puts at 2.16GW. The paper costs the development at about A$30 billion, against the A$31.9 billion at full build-out the ABC has reported. Anthropic does not carry that cost itself, and it has a partnership with Macquarie Asset Management and GIC to fund dedicated data centre infrastructure, announced with no sites, capacity or value attached.

Anthropic is expected to run finished models at Kogan

An AI data centre can run a model that already exists, answering users' questions and driving agents, or it can build a new one by feeding it text, images and code. Training on Australian books, articles, music and art is what the copyright argument is about. Running a model built elsewhere is how the hyperscalers already operate in Australia.

The Financial Review reports Anthropic was expected to use Western Downs for the first of those, and that focusing on it lets the company bypass the copyright debate, because it intended to use only data the models were already trained on. The company declined to comment.

Both halves were reported as one package in July. A Treasury brief to Treasurer Jim Chalmers, released under freedom of information, records Anthropic saying its investment in model development and associated infrastructure is contingent on clarity of copyright settings, and that what it wanted was certainty about its liability to a long tail of small rights holders it cannot practically license. The Australian Government ruled out a copyright exception for AI training in October 2025, and Attorney-General Michelle Rowland said on 7 July 2026 that there are no plans to weaken copyright protections. Anthropic's direct federal business in Australia so far runs to a pilot with the Fair Work Commission.

Kogan can be built and filled while those talks run. The training capacity reported in June and July still waits on them, on Anthropic's own account to Treasury.

Western Downs council is assessing the application

The council's planning team assesses the application before councillors consider it, and the ABC reported on 14 September 2026 that approval could take years, with a build running four to six. The campus goes up in four stages. The Financial Review reports it due to start operating in 2027 if it receives development approvals. The paper puts up to 1,500 workers on the four buildings, with up to 1,400 running the campus at full capacity, in a shire of farms, gas fields and power stations.

The Financial Review puts Western Downs in operation in 2027 if the approvals come, and the ABC puts the approvals alone at years. Western Downs Regional Council now sits on the critical path of a campus costed at about A$30 billion.

Queensland put wind and solar farms onto that list by an Act of Parliament on 18 July 2025, and added large batteries to it by regulation on 12 December 2025. A listed project has to produce a social impact study and a community benefit agreement with the host council before it lodges an application, and on both occasions applications already lodged and awaiting a decision had to be made again. Data centres are not on that list, and the head of the state planning department can excuse a listed project from either document.

Zerra is already negotiating a community payment with the council that no Queensland rule yet requires of a data centre, and whatever Kogan settles on becomes the number every Queensland council opens with. Residents told the Queensland parliament they were worried by the scale of the development, its use of water and electricity, and its effect on the area's rural character, the Financial Review reports.

What to watch

The council's decision, and whether Queensland adds data centres to the list, which on both previous occasions sent lodged applications back to the start. The community payment Zerra and the council settle. Whether either party puts a capacity figure on the lease, and where the rest of the reported 1.4GW goes, with an Infrastructure NSW email showing Anthropic's chief executive wanting to discuss up to 5GW outside Sydney. Then the power: a prediction published here on 10 September had Queensland becoming the first state to sell power to an AI campus from its own generators, with Anthropic as the customer. The Financial Review's renewables line cuts against that call, and the company has separately been reported in advanced talks with SunCable for Northern Territory solar. Then the builders. A 1.44GW campus on this timetable draws on the architects, engineers and contractors the majors already use.