Anthropic's plan for Australia's largest data centre - ABC News & Headlines – Australian Broadcasting Corporation

As debate rages over Australian copyright and Ai investment, Anthropic has inked a deal to run Australia's largest data centre, proposed for rural southern Queensland.

The company has signed a long-term lease for the 32-billion-dollar Western Downs Digital Park, and if approved - what's now a cattle feedlot  would be transformed.

The concept model of a large-scale data centre project that has been proposed for the Western Downs.(Supplied: Urbis)

As debate rages over Australian copyright and Ai investment, Anthropic - has inked a deal to run Australia's largest data centre - proposed for rural southern Queensland.

The company has signed a long-term lease for the 32-billion-dollar Western Downs Digital Park, and if approved - what's now a cattle feedlot  would be transformed...

but his Western Downs Regional Council is still assessing the project.

If approved the data centre will be built by Singapore developer Zerra DC... its application proposes building the facility on 725 hectares near three gas plants, a solar farm and transmission infrastructure.

Data Centres are heavy users of electricity and water... raising concerns for some farmers in the region.

Farmers worry recycled water from nearby coal seam gas mining could end up being redirected from farmers to the data centre.

Water use could be just over a fifth of an Olympic swimming pool a day during construction, then a one off flush and fill the equivalent of 11 pools, and ongoing use could equate to around 48 households a day.

The Mayor Andrew Smith doesn't think the water use will be excessive.

What we are learning is that the new air cool technology takes a lot less water than some of the old data centre technologies but that is part of the planning process.

Maximum power use could be 2.16 gigawatts, or equivalent to 1.5 million average Australian households, drawing on gas, electricity or renewable energy at different stages of the project.The advocacy group Save our Darling Downs wants to see the proposed data centre entirely powered by renewables.

The Federal government aims to pass data centre legislation early next year, after national cabinet recently agreed to develop consistent rules, with flexibility for jurisdictions including Queensland to use coal and gas.

Queensland's Premier, David Crisafulli says the historic Anthropic deal is a major win for jobs and energy.

It must add energy generation to the grid and drive down power prices for Queenslanders. It must protect local water supplies

It comes amid tech companies own concerns about Ai's future risks to society and the need for international regulations...

... and as debate continues in Australia over whether Ai should face copyright restrictions .

... the ABC understands Anthropic's Claude AI chatbot would be powered by the data centre, rather than carry out data ingestion, known as training the Ai model.

Save our Darling Downs wants approval paused while regulations are set... saying rushing ahead could risk mistakes like her region's gas boom that didn't include an Australian reserve.