• Anthropic has signed lease documentation for the first stage of Zerra DC's proposed Western Downs Digital Park near Dalby
  • The project still requires local planning approval and Foreign Investment Review Board clearance before the proposed campus can proceed

The fact

Anthropic has signed lease documentation for the first stage of the proposed Western Downs Digital Park, a hyperscale data-centre campus being developed by Singapore-based Zerra DC about 37km north-west of Dalby in Queensland. The 725.5-hectare site is currently occupied by a cattle feedlot.

The wider campus has a potential peak capacity of 2.16GW and is planned for staged delivery from 2027 over four to six years. That figure describes the possible full build rather than the capacity Anthropic has committed to in its first stage, which has not been publicly disclosed.

The development application reached Western Downs Regional Council in August and remains subject to approval. Anthropic's lease also requires Foreign Investment Review Board clearance. The site is close to existing generation and transmission infrastructure, and the project is not expected to require new transmission lines.

The assessment

The customer commitment has arrived before the approvals needed to build the campus. That gives Zerra DC a named user for its first stage, but it does not turn the proposed 2.16GW development into committed operating capacity.

Planning, foreign-investment clearance and the first-stage engineering programme still have to move forward. The developers also need to define how much capacity Anthropic will receive, when its electrical connection can be energised and which parts of the wider campus must be built to support that initial tenancy. Until those details are disclosed, the full-campus figure says little about what can actually enter service in 2027.

For BTW readers, the distinction is between contracted demand and deliverable capacity. Anthropic has provided the former; council approval, FIRB clearance, a defined first-stage power requirement and a construction programme are still needed before that commitment becomes an operating data centre.

What to watch

Watch the Western Downs Regional Council decision and FIRB clearance, followed by disclosure of Anthropic's first-stage capacity and power requirements. A confirmed grid-connection programme, construction start and target energisation date would show how much of the proposed campus can realistically enter service from 2027 rather than leaving the 2.16GW figure as a long-term build-out target.