Internal emails expose scale of Anthropic's Australian AI plans

Topic:AI

The US-based AI company behind chatbot Claude had plans to build massive infrastructure in NSW. (Reuters: Dado Ruvic/Illustration)

In short:

The US tech giant behind popular AI chatbot Claude wanted to meet with the NSW government earlier this year about locating up to 5 gigawatts of data centres in the state, the ABC can reveal.

That would be more than three times the current capacity of all Australia's data centres.

What's next?

National cabinet is meeting today to consider new water and energy rules for AI data centres amid mounting community concern about their rollout in Australia.

Internal NSW government emails reveal AI giant Anthropic was interested in building up to 5 gigawatts of AI data centre capacity in NSW alone, a capacity that would be three times the size of Australia's entire data centre infrastructure.

This grand ambition from the US company behind Claude would require tens of billions of dollars in investment and a significant expansion in the number of data centres across the country, to meet just one company's demand in a single state.

"That is a massive amount," Olivia Shen, director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, said.

It comes as the Albanese government negotiates new rules for large-scale data centres with the states, which are vying with each other to attract investment from Silicon Valley.

Know more about this story? Email Cam Wilson on wilson.cameron@abc.net.au or his secure email cmwlsn@protonmail.com

The speed and scale of the AI data centre boom has prompted a growing backlash from local communities concerned about the impacts of building this physical infrastructure in their local communities.

Training and running generative AI needs an enormous amount of computing capacity, which requires expensive computing hardware and tremendous amounts of power. They can also be hot and noisy.

With Silicon Valley rushing out new AI models at a breakneck pace, there has been a race to build the physical infrastructure required to serve the billions of people using popular AI services launched since late 2022.

More than $150 billion is lined up for data centre development and investment in Australia, but there are questions as to whether the boom will provide benefits beyond a short-term construction boost.

Emails reveal plans to meet Anthropic CEO

Documents released by NSW parliament earlier this year reveal how a senior public servant shared information about Anthropic's interest in building out its AI computing capacity in NSW.

Dena Jacobs, executive director of independent state government agency Infrastructure NSW, wrote to two senior public servants at the Department of Premier's Investment NSW in March about a conversation with Anthropic adviser John Garnaut.

Ms Jacobs told the staff she wanted to organise a meeting between Investment NSW staff and Mr Garnaut ahead of a "a more senior level meeting".

"The context is that the CEO of Anthropic is visiting Sydney and would like to speak to NSW government about the opportunities to locate up to 5GW of AI training capacity in NSW. i.e. there's an opportunity to locate this outside Sydney," she wrote on March 18.

The speed and scale of the data centre boom has prompted backlash from some communities. (Supplied: Microsoft)

Ms Jacobs's email did not specify Anthropic's intended timeframe for this computing goal.

The ABC understands the 5GW goal only reflected initial interest from Anthropic, which was one of a handful of major tech companies that Infrastructure NSW had spoken with about their future computing demands.

Both Anthropic and NSW Investment declined to comment.

The Albanese government is negotiating new rules for large-scale data centres with states. (ABC News: Victoria Pengilley)

Mr Garnaut told the ABC that he "work[s] with AI firms" but said he "did not put in this particular request"

Two weeks later, Anthropic's senior executives, including CEO Dario Amodei, visited Australia.

Mr Amodei met the prime minister and treasurer when they signed a memorandum of understanding between the company and the government, which included, among other things, a promise to "expand [Anthropic]'s presence in Australia"

The AI company has not publicly stated how much computing capacity it would like to obtain in Australia.

The ABC reported in June that Anthropic wanted 5GW of new Australian computing capacity by 2030, with a longer-term goal of 20GW.

The Australian Financial Review reported in July about a confidential tender sent by the AI company to Australian data centre builders asking for 1.4GW of capacity, valued at more than $20 billion.

Australia an attractive destination for centres

Anthropic's interest in up to 5GW for a single state would dwarf the projections for the total amount of computing capacity expected to be built by the end of the decade.

New data released in a report from lobby group Data Centre Australia today calculated that Australia currently has 1.6GW of computing capacity in total.

The report projects that Australia's data centre capacity will grow to 3.9GW by 2030.

These figures are a marked increase from data released by the same group earlier this year.

Last year in the US alone, projects collectively worth $200 billion were scuppered or delayed as communities protested the construction of new data centres promised to deliver the AI of the future.

In April, Data Centres Australia said there were 1.5GW of current capacity and 3.2GW projected by 2030, suggesting demand for computing capacity, and the ability to satisfy that demand, was growing even faster than anticipated.

Analysts estimated global data centre capacity was somewhere around 55 and 82 gigawatts in 2025.

Ms Shen said Australia had emerged as an attractive destination for US AI companies for several reasons.

"One is just that we have lots of land. Another is that we have huge amounts of renewable capacity, particularly solar energy, and the third is that we are a stable democracy," she said.

The artificial intelligence boom requires power-hungry data centres. (ABC News: Rhiannon Stevens)

While Australians are among the most distrustful populations in the world of AI, they are also some of the fastest adopters of the technology.

Anthropic released data in June claiming that Australia ranked first in the world for use of its Claude project, when adjusted for the working-age population.

Ms Shen said Anthropic, out of all of the global tech companies, was particularly incentivised to move some of its operations abroad.

Anthropic remains locked in a high-stakes legal battle with the US government over export controls placed on its cutting-edge models.

The company is also reportedly looking at going public at a $US2 trillion ($2.8 trillion) valuation as soon as late this year.

"In the face of this uncertainty about the regulatory landscape in the US, including a lot of local opposition to data centres, it makes sense for Anthropic to want to diversify its compute and its business outside of the United States," Ms Shen said.

Governments looking to attract business

Australian governments, too, have indicated their interest in attracting US tech companies to establish themselves here.

Other internal NSW government emails released by parliamentary order show that the office of NSW Innovation, Science and Technology Minister Anoulack Chanthivong set up a meeting with one US Anthropic executive during their trip.

The ABC understands that meeting did not go ahead.

Mr Chanthivong told the ABC his government did not comment on private discussions but would regularly discuss investment opportunities with the companies.

"The Minns Labor government continues to welcome investment from leading technology companies," he said.

Last week, NSW announced a set of new energy, water, environmental and community requirements for data centres.

In return, developers would receive a commitment to have their development applications assessed within 75 days.

The state said qualifying projects must fund additional water and energy supply and impose no net cost on consumers and communities.

The Albanese government is pursuing new requirements around the use of energy and water. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)

These rules come on top of Anthony Albanese's recent announcement that the federal government would create a set of "Australian standards" that he hoped would attract investment from top tech companies while avoiding a US-style community backlash.

This comes as polling from multiple outlets shows that a plurality of Australians would oppose data centres being built in their local community.

The Albanese government is pursuing new requirements around the use of energy and water, copyright protections, workers' rights and computing capacity for Australian businesses and researchers.

Mr Albanese is set for a showdown over these standards at national cabinet later today, as both Queensland and the Northern Territory have signalled that they will not accept a requirement to guarantee that all data centres bring enough new renewable energy to account for their added demand.

The rest of the new data centre rules will be developed as the Albanese government seeks to legislate the standards in early 2027.

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