Anthropic has signed a long-term lease to operate its Claude AI system from the proposed Western Downs Digital Park in Queensland, according to ABC News Australia. The project, being developed by Singapore-based Zerra DC, is planned for a 725.5-hectare site near Kogan, about 37 kilometres north-west of Dalby and roughly 250 kilometres from Brisbane.
The data centre is projected to cost $32 billion, with Zerra DC contributing $30 billion to its construction. The facility is expected to take four to six years to build, although Anthropic plans to begin using the first building in 2027. The lease remains subject to approval from Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board.
Zerra DC says the centre will be fully air cooled and use closed-loop water circulation, rejecting heat through outside air rather than evaporation. The developer estimates the first building will require 21,000 litres of water a day when operational, or 7.7 million litres annually. Across four buildings, annual demand is forecast at 25.5 million litres, with 40 per cent of daily needs supplied through on-site recycling and rainwater harvesting. The company says groundwater would be used only as a contingency.
Ian Wright, an associate professor of environmental science at Western Sydney University, described the projected water use as low compared with his expectations and said the system could be “pretty much water neutral” if it performs as proposed. He also cautioned that air cooling at this scale would be unusual, particularly because AI workloads commonly use high-density server racks.
The project’s proposed peak electrical capacity is 2.16 gigawatts. Engineer Andreas Helwig told ABC that, at typical hyperscale utilisation, the facility could consume between 43 and 47 gigawatt-hours a day—about 25 to 30 per cent of Queensland’s average daily electricity consumption. Zerra DC says the development would connect to the high-voltage network at the existing Braemar substation, while Anthropic intends to seek long-term power purchase agreements with renewable-energy suppliers.
Zerra DC forecasts about 1,400 permanent jobs once the campus is operating, in areas including electrical and mechanical systems, security and information technology. It also expects 1,500 construction workers to be required during development. ABC noted that overseas government studies have found operational staffing at data centres is generally much lower than construction employment, though Zerra DC says the campus’s planned 195,000 square metres of floor space will require additional staff.