Anthropic is leasing data centre capacity in regional Queensland. The AI company’s Australian subsidiary has entered into lease documentation with Australian Data Centres, or ADC, for delivery of the first stage of a proposed hyperscale data centre campus in the Western Downs region, according to Dexus, which holds an 85 percent interest in ADC and disclosed the arrangement in its September quarterly update to the Australian Stock Exchange.
The documentation is not yet definitive. Dexus said the arrangement remains subject to customary approvals, including its own board’s approval, and that further details will be provided at financial close of the Anthropic project. Speaking at the company’s general meeting, chief executive Ross Du Vernet said ADC has launched a fundraising process to bring in additional capital, and that Dexus has yet to determine how far it will participate.
The wider proposal around the site is much larger than the lease itself. September reporting described a consortium including ADC and Zerra DC planning four data centres on 720 hectares near Dalby, northwest of Brisbane, with 2.16 gigawatts of capacity and the first facilities online in 2027. Zerra DC’s August filing for the campus described a first building of 36,000 square metres with an on-site battery backed power conditioning system and a 540MVA substation. ADC itself is small today: two operating data centres in Canberra, acquired in December 2025, with Melbourne, Sydney and Darwin in development.
Anthropic’s interest in Australian capacity has been visible since April 2026, when it signed a memorandum of understanding with the Australian government to cooperate on AI safety research and support the goals of the National AI Plan, under which it could invest in data centre infrastructure and energy in the country. The lease, if it closes, converts that intention into contracted capacity, and adds Australia to the map of the company’s 895.4 billion dollars of cloud and data centre commitments disclosed in its amended S-1, covered here on November 2.