Why Australia is next for Anthropic's data centre ambitions
A closer look at the AI firm's data centre situation reveals why Australia makes strategic sense right now.
Anthropic is exploring data centres in Australia, says Reuters. But after digging into the details, I think they're well past exploring.
Anthropic just can't stop talking about Australia in recent weeks. Earlier in March, the AI firm announced its fourth office in the Asia-Pacific in Sydney. Then this week, CEO Dario Amodei flew over and signed a memorandum of understanding with the Australian government to collaborate on AI.
The case for Australia
And as reported by Reuters today, the firm now says it is "exploring investments in data centre infrastructure and energy throughout the country." That's a lot of activity in a very short space of time for a company that is merely "exploring."
With immense renewable energy potential and vast stretches of uninhabited land, Australia appears to be ideal for data centres. It has some 1.3GW of capacity in 2025 and is on track to tip over 2GW in 2027.
Of course, Australia is also one of the most expensive places in Asia-Pacific to build a data centre. According to a 2026 Cushman and Wakefield report, it ranks fourth in the region behind Japan, Singapore, and South Korea, and just ahead of Hong Kong. So why the sudden interest? I did some digging.
Not enough data centres
It turns out Anthropic has relatively few data centres of its own. Its AI models run mostly on AWS as part of an US$8 billion Amazon investment. It also uses Google Cloud.
In October last year, a dedicated US$11 billion AWS data centre in Indiana opened. According to press reports, it exists solely to train and serve Claude. In November, Anthropic announced a US$50 billion investment to build its own data centres in the US, with initial facilities in Texas and New York expected to come online this year. Data centres at more locations are expected to follow.
That's it. For a company competing at the frontier of AI, the infrastructure footprint is remarkably thin.
The real reason
It's worth noting that the US Department of Defense designated Anthropic a "supply-chain risk to national security" in February. It's another story I won't go into today. While a court has temporarily blocked the designation, it remains to be seen how this will play out.
The move to Australia is about more than renewables and available land. It's a move by Anthropic to build AI data centre assets outside the US, in a Western-aligned nation where there is less resistance to data centres and where they can be built quickly. The geopolitical dimension adds urgency to what might otherwise look like a routine expansion.
Which is why Australia isn't just on Anthropic's radar. It's next.
