The federal government gave Anthropic a draft of its data centre guidelines while negotiating a deal in which the Claude chatbot maker agreed to follow them, according to documents released under freedom of information laws.
The guidelines, known as the data centre expectations and released on March 23, tell developers of large new data centres to put the national interest first. The government says they are meant to stop data centres pushing up power bills.
They are not yet legally binding, but the government plans to make them mandatory under national AI standards to be legislated early next year. As proposed, that would put Anthropic’s own Australian data centre plans under the rules it saw in draft. Industry and Innovation Minister Tim Ayres has said projects need to meet the guidelines “to secure Commonwealth government support”.
An Anthropic spokesperson said the company “received the draft expectations for consideration in the MOU” signed with the government on April 1, a non-binding agreement to work together on AI. “It would be inaccurate to suggest we had any influence on the final data centre expectations,” the spokesperson said.
The Industry Department’s own briefing material, written on March 18, five days before the guidelines were published, says, “the department consulted Anthropic on the development of the expectations”. It adds that the advice could change “pending the outcome of today’s meeting with Anthropic”. The rest of the passage was blacked out.
The government said it routinely consults widely, and that Anthropic was one of a number of stakeholders consulted across industry, experts and government. It said Anthropic agreeing to align with the guidelines was its condition for finalising the memorandum, the same approach it took with Microsoft.
Microsoft signed its own memorandum on April 23, a month after the guidelines were published. The documents do not show whether Microsoft or any other company was given a draft.
Data centres use about 3 per cent of the power on the national grid. The Australian Energy Market Operator expects that to reach 13 per cent within a decade.
Anthropic now has a stake in how the guidelines are applied. Last month it signed a lease on the first stage of a proposed $32 billion data centre campus at Western Downs in Queensland. The deal still needs approval from the Foreign Investment Review Board, which vets foreign investment for the national interest.
At its planned peak, the campus would draw 2.16 gigawatts, about the average use of 1.5 million Australian homes.
Bloomberg
Community opposition to data centres is growing. Local group Save Our Darling Downs has raised concerns about the Western Downs campus’ energy use, and the Climate Council and Greenpeace have warned it could increase reliance on coal and gas.
In a joint statement, Anthropic and the project’s developer said the campus would buy power from “a combination of existing Queensland generators and new generation that will add more supply to the market than we will use”. The statement did not say how much of that new supply would be renewable.
Treasury’s foreign investment policy, updated in May, says data centre proposals that align with the guidelines will be prioritised in the approval process where possible.
The commitment to share the draft was made after a March 12 meeting with Anthropic. Joel Einstein, an acting general manager at the Department of Industry, Science and Resources, told a colleague to note “the commitment for DISR to send the draft copy of the expectations”. The email was released to this masthead under freedom of information laws.
Asked whether a timeframe had been agreed, Einstein replied there was “no timeframe commitment on sharing the draft expectations”.
The next day, Simon Writer, then the department’s acting deputy secretary for science and technology, circulated an “updated MOU and confidentiality deed”. Both were withheld.
Kate Griffiths, the Grattan Institute’s deputy director of democracy, said lobbying could improve policy, but well-resourced groups had far more access to decision makers. “No one should be surprised that these groups are knocking on doors,” she said. “But politicians and public servants should be seeking out a wider range of views to adjudicate the public interest.”
She said a federal register of lobbying contacts and the publication of ministers’ diaries would show “who’s lobbying who, on what, and how often”.
Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei signed the memorandum in Canberra on April 1, when he met Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
In it, Anthropic pledged to “align its Australian operations” with the expectations and to uphold Australia’s laws and values. The memorandum says it gives Anthropic no preferential treatment in regulatory decisions or Commonwealth procurement. Anthropic has also pledged to pay its share of power generation and transmission costs in Australia, as it has in the US.
Separate documents published by the department show it engaged an adviser to check that its arrangements with AI companies were fair and properly run. Before the Microsoft deal was signed, the department told ministers the adviser had found “no material probity concerns with the process undertaken to date”.
The department negotiating these deals was also courting the companies. Its brief for ministers meeting Amodei listed encouraging Anthropic’s investment “in line with our national interest” first under “what we want”, with the key message that “Australia is a great place for Anthropic to invest”. Ministers were given the same key message before meeting Microsoft three weeks later.
‘It would be inaccurate to suggest we had any influence on the final data centre expectations.’
AI spokesperson
Ayres said the Anthropic deal showed Australia was “open for business, where investment aligns with Australia’s priorities and Australian values”.
The ACTU declined to comment on whether it was consulted on the guidelines. Secretary Melissa Donnelly said unions wanted AI data centres regulated so they were “forced to produce more energy than they use”.
“If big tech want to build in Australia they should pay their way,” she said.
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who chairs a Senate inquiry into AI and data centres, said the companies that stood to profit from Australia’s AI boom “should not be calling the shots on the rules that govern them”.
“Big AI needs to earn their social licence here in Australia,” she said. She called for a moratorium on new data centres until stronger rules were in place.
The government opened public consultation on the national AI standards last month. Submissions close on Friday.
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David Swan is the technology editor for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously technology editor for The Australian newspaper.Connect via X or email.
