Why is Anthropic buying 1.4GW of data centre capacity in Australia?
A US$15 billion tender points to plans laid months ago.
Anthropic plans to buy 1.4GW of data centre capacity in Australia, according to a new report by the Australian Financial Review (AFR). The writing was already on the wall earlier this year.
A tender issued confidentially by Anthropic was obtained by AFR's Street Talk, which wrote about it over the weekend. Street Talk says the data centre could cost as much as US$15 billion to build, with Anthropic reportedly seeking at least 1GW as soon as end-2027.
The request for proposal highlighted capabilities such as energy strategy, land availability, financing capacity, delivery track record, and the ability to support multi-year projects. It is understood that Anthropic is still some weeks from a final decision on whether to award the contract to one provider or split it across four or five.
The infrastructure gap
As I wrote in April, the opening of an office in Sydney, followed by CEO Dario Amodei flying over to sign an MOU with the Australian government on AI collaboration, spoke volumes about its plans. At that time, Anthropic said it was "exploring investments in data centre infrastructure and energy throughout the country."
Curious, I took a deeper look at its data centres. It turns out Anthropic has relatively few of its own. Its AI models run mostly on AWS as part of an US$8 billion Amazon investment, and it also uses Google Cloud. Last year, a dedicated AWS data centre that exists solely to train and serve Claude opened in Indiana. At least two new US data centres are expected to come online this year, with more to follow.
For a company competing at the frontier of AI, the infrastructure footprint is remarkably thin. More so when you consider the runaway success of its products such as Claude Code and Claude Cowork.
Beyond the US
Ultimately, I see the move to Australia as more than renewables and available land. It is a move to build AI data centre assets outside the US, within a Western-aligned nation.
Will Anthropic consider data centres in other parts of the Asia Pacific, including Southeast Asia? I believe yes, eventually. For now, it needs to expand with large facilities, and as quickly as possible.
