A cattle feedlot outside Dalby in Queensland’s Western Downs is lined up to become Australia’s biggest data centre. Anthropic, the company behind Claude, has signed a long term lease as the anchor tenant. Premier David Crisafulli announced the deal in mid September.
The site
The Western Downs Digital Park sits on 725 hectares about 37km north west of Dalby. Right now it is home to a 24,000 head cattle feedlot.
The build
The campus is valued at A$31.9B at full build out. It is being developed by Singapore based Zerra DC in a consortium with Macquarie Capital and Dexus’s Australian Data Centres platform, which holds a 25% stake. The plans show four buildings of about 36,000 square metres each, built over four to six years.
Anthropic aims to start using the first stage in 2027. Reporting describes it as an inference site, meaning it runs Claude to answer people’s requests rather than training new models.
The power
Peak capacity is 2.16GW, roughly what 1.5 million average Australian homes use. The Climate Council says it could use three times the power of Brisbane’s residents and add around 6.6 million tonnes of emissions a year on Queensland’s current grid. The local mayor says it could bring around 1,000 jobs to the region.
Not approved yet
The Western Downs Regional Council is still assessing the application, and the Foreign Investment Review Board has to clear it.
My read
Amodei wants the models slowed down, not the buildings. We have the land and we have the power. The power and emissions questions still have to get through the approval process. But if this turns into real work out in the Western Downs, so be it.