An Australian name is quietly sitting behind some of the biggest AI infrastructure being built right now. Macquarie is helping fund Anthropic’s data centres.
The deal
In August, Anthropic, Macquarie Asset Management and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC set up Theseus Infrastructure. The platform will develop, operate and lease purpose-built data centres to Anthropic, starting with new sites in the United States. Funds managed by Macquarie Asset Management and GIC will own the platform and put up the majority of the equity for each project. Anthropic is the anchor tenant on long-term leases. No dollar figure was disclosed.
The power bill
The detail I found most interesting: Anthropic says it will cover electricity price increases that consumers could otherwise face because of these sites, in line with commitments it made earlier in the year. Data centres pushing up local power prices has become one of the biggest fights in AI infrastructure, and here the tenant is putting its hand up for it.
Why it matters here
Macquarie Asset Management is the investment arm of Sydney-based Macquarie Group, best known for owning and running toll roads, airports, ports and energy networks. Data centres for a frontier AI lab are the same playbook: long-lived physical assets with a big, creditworthy tenant locked in for years.
My read
Models get cheaper. The ground does not. Land, power and buildings are the scarce part, and that is exactly where Australian infrastructure money like Macquarie’s has spent decades getting good.