Capital Brief reported on 23 October 2026 that the land for Anthropic’s first new data centre development in Australia, Zerra DC’s proposed Western Downs Digital Park in regional Queensland, is coming from a cattle feedlot whose owner spent years trying to secure water from subsidiaries of Shell. The report says the saga raises questions about whether Zerra will be able to access the nearly 27 million litres of water it needs to fill the cooling systems of each of the campus’s four data centre buildings.
Anthropic signed its first deal in Australia for the $32 billion campus near Dalby in September, ABC News and Capital Brief reported on 16 September 2026, with capacity expected to begin coming online in 2027. Zerra DC said the buildings would be entirely air-cooled and would not draw from bores or town water, ABC News reported on 16 October.
Business Pill · GRID COST ALLOCATION
A short Business Engineer explainer of grid cost allocation, who pays for new transmission lines. It teaches the general idea only and says nothing about Anthropic, Zerra DC or Queensland.
The key insight: As we read it, the new element is the land’s history: Capital Brief reports the site is coming from a feedlot whose owner spent years trying to secure water, and questions whether Zerra can access the nearly 27 million litres it needs to fill each building’s cooling systems.
At the centre of the story is Wambo Feedlot managing director Max Winders, who hopes selling his land to Singapore-based Zerra DC will put to rest a struggle to secure water from Shell’s subsidiaries to expand his existing operations, Capital Brief reported. The report says Winders’ problems kept the space free for the $32 billion campus.
“Wambo’s invested an awful lot of money in trying to improve our access to water under our properties, and it looks as though we’ll be able to help Zerra get access to it,” Winders told Capital Brief. “I’m really glad that they’re proceeding because I know that Zerra are interested in the water.”
Capital Brief described Anthropic as an anchor tenant at the proposed campus. In September it reported that Anthropic had signed a long-term commitment there, according to a person familiar with the matter, and that the project is being built by Singapore-based investment firm AGP’s Zerra DC.
Three figures for Zerra DC’s proposed Western Downs Digital Park near Dalby, Queensland, where Anthropic signed for the first of four buildings: 1.4 gigawatts of total IT capacity in planning documents with first capacity expected from 2027 (Capital Brief, 16 September 2026); 21,000 litres of water a day per building in Zerra’s planning documents (ABC News, 16 October 2026); and nearly 27 million litres to fill each building’s cooling systems (Capital Brief, 23 October 2026). Daily use and a one-off fill are different measures and are not compared.Three figures for the Western Downs Digital Park, as reported: 1.4 gigawatts of total IT capacity in planning documents (Capital Brief, 16 September 2026), 21,000 litres of water a day per building in Zerra DC’s planning documents (ABC News, 16 October 2026), and nearly 27 million litres to fill each building’s cooling systems (Capital Brief, 23 October 2026). Daily use and a one-off fill are different measures.
What the Developer Has Said About Water
Zerra DC’s planning documents say each of the four buildings would require 21,000 litres of water a day, equivalent to the water usage of a small shopping centre, ABC News reported on 16 October. Zerra’s chief data centre officer Matt Ward told ABC News the facility would be entirely air-cooled, would not draw from bores or town water, and would harvest rainwater from its buildings, which he described as “large sheds” with “35,000-odd square metres of roof space”.
Ward said the company’s modelling showed that even in 2019, when Dalby received less than 200 millimetres of rain, the site would catch enough rainwater to operate, ABC News reported. When the deal was announced in September, the Queensland government said the digital park would use minimal water during operation, according to ABC News.
The two published water figures describe different things: 21,000 litres a day is ongoing use per building in the planning documents, while about 27 million litres is the amount Capital Brief reported is needed to fill each building’s cooling systems. We do not compare or combine them.
The Site in Numbers
Figure
Value
Source
Campus investment
$32 billion
ABC News; Capital Brief
Total IT capacity in planning documents
1.4 gigawatts
Capital Brief, 16 Sep
Buildings
Four; Anthropic leased the first
ABC News, 16 Oct
Site
About 725 hectares, four to six years to build
ABC News, 16 Sep
First capacity
Expected from 2027
Capital Brief; ABC News
Daily water per building
21,000 litres
Zerra planning documents, via ABC News
Water to fill each building’s cooling systems
Nearly 27 million litres
Capital Brief, 23 Oct
Jobs Zerra has committed to
1,500 a year in construction; 1,400 ongoing at full capacity
Zerra DC, via ABC News
Figures as reported; they describe different things and are not added together.
Power and Approvals
The campus will connect directly to the grid through the nearby Braemar substation and include an on-site battery, with Anthropic expected to seek long-term power purchasing agreements, Capital Brief reported in September. In a second report it said the site will be powered by coal and gas as a bridge until renewables are built. It quoted Winders: “In all likelihood, they’ll just link up to the grid, sign a contract with the state energy provider, and then, likely draw the power from the coal plants that are already there.”
Ward told ABC News that Zerra would act like the “landlord of any commercial building”, with tenant Anthropic responsible for paying for power supply. ABC News reported in September that Anthropic’s lease is subject to Foreign Investment Review Board approval, and that it understood Anthropic would use the site to power Claude to answer user questions, rather than for training AI models. Zerra has applied for “prescribed project” status, which would let Queensland’s coordinator-general step in and fast-track approvals, ABC News reported on 5 October.
Connecting the Coverage
Our NextDC piece covered NEXTDC removing approximately A$140 million from its guidance on 21 October and noted that Anthropic’s draft IPO prospectus warned that political resistance to data centres has “become more organized and coordinated across jurisdictions”, as the Wall Street Journal reported. Our Amazon Loudoun piece covered Amazon agreeing to withdraw a plan for four data center buildings on a Virginia campus, with Amazon’s Josh Weissman saying, according to Fortune: “We just heard from the community.”
Our chip-backed debt piece carried Bloomberg’s report that chip-backed debt is on track to become a trillion-dollar market. What’s new: Capital Brief’s report ties the land under Anthropic’s Queensland site to a long-running fight over water access.
The Structural Read
As we read it, two water accounts now sit side by side: Zerra says the buildings will be entirely air-cooled and will not draw from bores or town water, per ABC News, while Capital Brief reports water is needed to fill each building’s cooling systems.
As we read it, the tenant carries the power bill: Ward told ABC News that Anthropic, as tenant, would be responsible for paying for power supply, and Capital Brief reported that coal and gas will be the bridge until renewables are built.
As we read it, approvals sit on the timeline: Zerra has applied for prescribed project status, per ABC News, and ABC News reported that Anthropic’s lease is subject to Foreign Investment Review Board approval.
Max Winders, Wambo Feedlot managing director, to Capital Brief
“Wambo’s invested an awful lot of money in trying to improve our access to water under our properties, and it looks as though we’ll be able to help Zerra get access to it”
Three Implications
FOR ANTHROPIC Capital Brief reported in September that Anthropic is expected to seek long-term power purchasing agreements for the site.
FOR ZERRA DC ABC News reported that Zerra has committed to 1,500 jobs a year during construction and 1,400 ongoing operational jobs at full capacity.
FOR THE WESTERN DOWNS Federal MP David Littleproud said power reliability and cost for existing homes, farmers and businesses “cannot be sacrificed to get this project across the line”, ABC News reported.
The framework says “The structural bottleneck isn’t computing, it’s electrons.”
As we read it, the Western Downs site puts water next to electrons as a local question, alongside the coal and gas bridge Capital Brief reported. The framework was published in December 2025 and does not discuss Queensland or this campus.
What Is Not Established
We read only the free opening of Capital Brief’s 23 October report, and we did not read Zerra DC’s planning documents or its development application. In the reports we read, Zerra does not address the 27 million litre figure, and we found no Anthropic comment on water; ABC News said in September that Anthropic had been contacted for comment. We did not contact Anthropic, Zerra DC or Wambo Feedlot.
This Week In The AI Supercycle
Execution Fault Lines, Concentrated Demand, and Geopolitical Firewalls
This piece is part of this week’s issue: the AI build is not short of demand for its parts. It is short of cheap money, and its end revenue rests on a narrow base of large, often venture-funded buyers.
The land for the $32 billion campus where Anthropic signed its first Australian data centre lease is coming from a feedlot whose owner struggled for years to secure water, Capital Brief reported, and the report questions whether Zerra DC can access the nearly 27 million litres it needs to fill each building’s cooling systems. Zerra DC said, according to ABC News, that the site would be air-cooled and would not draw from bores or town water.
A note on sourcing. This piece is based on the free openings of three Capital Brief reports (23 October and 16 September 2026) and three ABC News reports (16 September, 5 October and 16 October 2026), read in full. The rest of Capital Brief’s reports is paywalled and was not read. We did not read Zerra DC’s planning documents, and we did not contact Anthropic, Zerra DC or Wambo Feedlot.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
