Zerra DC is a developer and operator of hyperscale data-centre campuses in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region, based in Singapore and owned by the investment firm AGP (Source: datacenterdynamics.com; reuters.com). Its largest disclosed project is the Western Downs Digital Park, a proposed four-building campus in regional Queensland, where Anthropic signed its first Australian data-centre lease in an arrangement that became public on September 16, 2026 (Source: afr.com).
Ownership and portfolio
Zerra DC was previously known as AGP DC. AGP, founded in 2018, has also invested in a data centre in Mumbai alongside Digital Edge and says it holds 920 MW of secured capacity across the United States, India, Japan and Australia. Zerra has data-centre developments planned in India, Japan and Australia; it previously secured $127 million in funding from Tata Capital for a data centre in Navi Mumbai, and has been reported to be considering a former automotive plant site in Melbourne for another development (Source: datacenterdynamics.com). The project website describes AGP as "an independent investor and asset manager of energy, real estate and digital infrastructure assets" (Source: westerndownsdigitalpark.com.au).
Western Downs Digital Park
The Western Downs Digital Park was filed with the Western Downs Regional Council in 2026 as a master-planned campus of up to four AI-ready data-centre phases. DCD reported the site as a 725.5-hectare plot at 1933 Dalby–Kogan Road, 37 km north-west of Dalby and roughly 250 km north-west of Brisbane, near the Braemar substation, the Darling Downs and Braemar 2 gas power stations, the Alinta Energy Braemar Power Station and the Darling Downs Solar Farm, on land occupied by a 24,000-head cattle feedlot owned by the Wambo Cattle Company. Phase 1 comprises a first data-centre building of 36,000 square metres, an on-site battery-backed power conditioning system and a 540 MVA substation, with three further buildings of the same floor area planned (Source: datacenterdynamics.com).
Reported cost and capacity figures vary by outlet. DCD put the project at more than A$31 billion (US$22.19 billion) at full build-out (Source: datacenterdynamics.com); the Australian Financial Review at about A$30 billion (Source: afr.com); and News Corp's NewsWire at "almost $32bn" (Source: news.com.au). Reuters, citing one of two people familiar with the Anthropic lease, gave planned campus capacity as 2.16 gigawatts (Source: reuters.com), while NewsWire described the agreement as giving Anthropic access to "up to 2.1 gigawatts" (Source: news.com.au). The project website gives each development stage a design capacity of approximately 540 MVA of total facility demand, which it distinguishes from actual consumption (Source: westerndownsdigitalpark.com.au).
Cooling and water
The project website states that the data centres will use 100% air-cooled heat rejection with closed-loop water circulation, so that cooling water is not consumed through evaporation. It estimates that the first building will require about 21 kL of water a day, of which about 8 kL would be recycled on site, leaving about 13 kL a day of raw water to be met mainly from harvested rainwater; construction would draw a peak of about 380 kL a day, preferably processed coal-seam-gas water, with a one-off volume of about 27 ML per building for commissioning. No town-water connection or bore extraction is proposed (Source: westerndownsdigitalpark.com.au).
Power supply
Accounts of how the campus would be powered differ. The two people who described the Anthropic lease to Reuters said Zerra would source renewable power purchase agreements and bear grid connection costs without incurring costs to existing customers (Source: reuters.com). The project website states that the campus will connect through a dedicated high-voltage connection at the Braemar substation, will "ultimately draw electricity from the Queensland electricity system, which is supplied by a mix of generation sources," and will fund the dedicated connection and project-specific network infrastructure, with generation and contracting arrangements for each stage "developed as the campus grows" (Source: westerndownsdigitalpark.com.au). The Australian Financial Review reported that, according to the development application, the first stage could be powered by gas or electricity, and that Anthropic would seek long-term agreements with wind, solar and storage projects (Source: afr.com). Capital Brief quoted the landowner, Wambo Cattle Company managing director Max Winders, as expecting that the project would "likely draw the power from the coal plants that are already there" (Source: capitalbrief.com); the remainder of that article is paywalled and was not read.
Approvals and reception
The campus remains subject to Western Downs Regional Council and Queensland state assessment, and the Anthropic lease is subject to Foreign Investment Review Board approval (Source: reuters.com; westerndownsdigitalpark.com.au). Queensland Premier David Crisafulli called the Anthropic agreement a "major win" and said he had met Anthropic during a trade mission. The Climate Council said the facility would use "three-times more power than the 1.4 million residents of the City of Brisbane" and produce 6.6 million tonnes of climate pollution, a figure for which the account gives no time period, and Greenpeace Australia said planning documents show the first stage could be powered by behind-the-meter gas. A Queensland parliament e-petition opposing the development had attracted more than 1,300 signatures (Source: news.com.au). The Queensland Renewable Energy Council said the Western Downs proposals showed the region's energy mix and agricultural base "strengthening its appeal to major new energy-intensive industries" (Source: datacenterdynamics.com).
Relationships
- related: Anthropic — lessee at the Western Downs Digital Park
- related: AI Data Centers — international and sovereign-compute buildout
- related: Behind-the-Meter Power for Data Centers — the on-site gas option described in planning documents
- related: Energy and Electric Power Sector