en.Wedoany.com Reported - US AI company Anthropic is planning to procure over 1.4 gigawatts (GW) of data center capacity in Australia, marking one of the largest AI infrastructure procurement deals in the country.
According to a report by the Australian Financial Review (AFR) citing confidential tender documents, Anthropic requires at least 1GW of capacity to be operational by the end of 2027 and is prepared to participate in development projects with undetermined sites. The company has issued requests for proposals to several local data center developers, including CDC Data Centres, AirTrunk, NEXTDC, IREN, and Stack Infrastructure. Initial proposals were submitted earlier this year, and shortlisted bidders have attended in-person meetings in Canberra. Anthropic expects to make a final decision in the coming weeks, with procurement potentially distributed among multiple suppliers.
A project of this scale would require approximately $12 billion to $15 billion in debt and equity financing. The tender documents reveal that Anthropic acknowledges its current non-investment-grade credit rating and requires potential partners to explain how they would underwrite the financing.
Although Anthropic declined to comment to AFR, it has previously expressed a willingness to establish a long-term presence in Australia. In April, the company signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Australian government under the National AI Plan. The MoU commits that Anthropic's future operations in Australia will align with government expectations for data center and AI infrastructure developers, including supporting the energy transition and participating in future infrastructure planning. The memorandum also emphasizes the importance of expanding energy supply and transmission infrastructure, with a focus on stable and reliable renewable energy. Anthropic has already established an office in Sydney and is recruiting locally for computing team positions covering data center engineering and operations, indicating that local capacity building is underway ahead of the procurement decision.
If the reported figures are accurate, this procurement would far exceed the scale of most individual data center projects currently planned in Australia, reflecting the global trend of AI infrastructure evolving toward gigawatt-scale. In its tender, Anthropic requires partners to provide detailed information on financing capabilities, available land, development experience, energy procurement, security credentials, and the ability to deliver at an unprecedented scale.
