Internal government documents reveal Anthropic previously explored establishing up to 5 gigawatts of artificial intelligence data center capacity in New South Wales, Australia.
Internal government emails obtained by ABC News show that Claude maker Anthropic expressed interest earlier this year in locating up to 5GW of AI data center capacity within New South Wales (NSW). This staggering capacity target represents more than three times the total combined capacity of all existing data centers currently operating across Australia, underscoring the massive energy footprint demanded by leading generative AI developers.
While the 5GW figure highlights the extreme scale of global AI infrastructure expansion, industry analysts emphasize that the proposal was an exploratory ambition rather than a legally binding construction commitment. Communications from Infrastructure NSW in March indicate that Anthropic engaged in preliminary discussions regarding potential site opportunities, though no specific timeline for deployment was finalized.
Representatives for both Anthropic and NSW Investment declined to provide official comments regarding the leaked internal correspondence. The sheer magnitude of a multi-gigawatt power requirement poses significant planning challenges for regional power grids, renewable energy procurement, and localized IT infrastructure supply chains within the Australian market.
For enterprise IT leaders across the region, the disclosed talks demonstrate how aggressively foreign AI hyperscalers are scouring international jurisdictions for vast power reserves. Even if a 5GW footprint is scaled back, the competitive pressure on local energy grids and data center availability will likely influence regional cloud pricing and capacity planning for years to come.