Aligned breaks ground on 2GW in Pennsylvania as Anthropic signs its first Australian lease

The week in 30 seconds

• North America: Aligned broke ground on Project Phoenix, a 2GW, three-building campus in Pennsylvania running on its own power.
• Asia Pacific: Anthropic signed its first Australian data centre lease, on Zerra DC's planned 2.16GW campus in Queensland.
• Europe and GCC: the UAE pledged about €40bn for Germany, including roughly 1GW of new data centres, as Khazna and Siemens agreed to trial 800V DC power.

The headline story

Gigawatt campuses are no longer announcements. On 10 September Aligned Data Centers formally broke ground on Project Phoenix, a 2GW, three-building campus on the site of the former Bruce Mansfield coal plant in Shippingport, Pennsylvania. It will run on dedicated onsite power rather than waiting for the grid, with about $10bn of regional investment, around 3,000 construction jobs and 640 permanent roles.

Six days later and half a world away, Anthropic signed its first Australian data centre lease, taking the first stage of Zerra DC's proposed 2.16GW campus near Dalby in Queensland's Western Downs. Delivery is staged from 2027, subject to planning and foreign investment approval.

Talent signal: gigawatt campuses with their own power need a rare blend of leaders: construction directors who have delivered at this scale, and energy executives who can run generation as well as buy it. Both pools are small, and the same names will be approached for Pennsylvania and Queensland alike.

AI infrastructure watch

The GPU and AI factory moves of the week, and the leadership they need. More on our AI infrastructure page.

Anthropic takes its first Australian capacity, for inference

A frontier AI lab leasing the first stage of a 2.16GW Queensland campus shows inference demand is now moving to where land and power are, not only to the established hubs (iTnews).

Talent signal: AI campus delivery directors who have built GPU halls, not just conventional data halls.

Microsoft reportedly plans about a third of 38GW for AI

Bloomberg's report puts roughly one third of Microsoft's planned 38GW by 2032 as AI-dedicated (DCD).

Talent signal: GPU cluster capacity planners and liquid cooling leads at every partner that builds for Microsoft.

Khazna and Siemens trial 800V DC power for AI halls

800V DC power is the architecture the next generation of AI racks needs, and Khazna will trial it in live facilities (WAM).

Talent signal: electrical design leaders with DC power and high-density rack experience, a very small pool worldwide.

Firmus prepares a neocloud IPO

The Nvidia-backed AI cloud, with more than 900MW contracted, is reported to be preparing an ASX listing (BeBeez).

Talent signal: GPU fleet operations and reliability leaders, increasingly hired by neoclouds with listed-company budgets.

North America

Aligned breaks ground on 2GW Project Phoenix in Pennsylvania

Aligned started a three-building, 2GW campus at a former coal plant site in Beaver County, with Holder Construction and Kokosing building and dedicated onsite power (Construction Review Online, Baxtel).

Talent signal: site general managers, construction directors and onsite power leads in the Pittsburgh corridor.

Microsoft reportedly plans 38GW of capacity by 2032

Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the plans, that Microsoft aims to grow from about 12GW of owned and leased capacity to more than 38GW by 2032. Microsoft declined to comment (DCD).

Talent signal: sustained demand for capacity planning, leasing and energy procurement leaders, at Microsoft and at the partners who build for it.

Vantage closes a $2bn facility for early-stage development

Vantage Data Centers closed a five-year, $2bn revolving facility led by Evercore and Wells Fargo to fund pre-construction work across North America (W.Media).

Talent signal: land, power and entitlement directors, and treasury leaders who can manage development-stage capital.

EPA repeals most 2024 power plant carbon rules

The EPA finalised a partial repeal of the 2024 standards for existing steam units and carbon capture requirements for new baseload gas, effective 16 November (J. J. Keller).

Talent signal: behind-the-meter gas becomes easier, raising demand for gas generation development and environmental permitting executives.

Europe

UAE pledges about €40bn for Germany, including about 1GW of data centres

During the UAE President's state visit, the two countries set out a package of about €40bn covering AI, digital infrastructure and energy, with roughly 1GW of new data centres. No developer, site or timeline has been named (TNW, The National).

Talent signal: when platforms are named, expect searches for German country heads and Bavarian site development directors.

Scotland pauses decisions on hyperscale data centres

The Scottish Parliament backed an amended motion that no planning decisions should be made on hyperscale applications until national guidance is published, due by the end of 2026. Environmental impact assessments are now required for sites over 50MW (Scottish Parliament).

Talent signal: planning, consenting and community engagement directors with Scottish experience become scarcer.

Vertical Data agrees to buy a Swedish site with a path to 100MW

Vertical Data signed to acquire a 4.5MW site at Hamre Industrial Park in Sollefteå and has applied to expand it to 100MW, subject to approvals (Newswire).

Talent signal: Nordic AI conversions need project directors and grid connection specialists.

Middle East & GCC

UAE reported to be reworking its 5GW AI campus into a dispersed network

Reuters reported, citing four sources, that after the Iranian strikes the UAE is likely to spread its planned single 5GW Abu Dhabi campus across several sites, and is considering air defences and some underground construction. G42 said work is progressing as planned and specifics are under review (Al-Monitor, via Reuters).

Talent signal: multi-site programme directors, and heads of physical and critical infrastructure security with hardened-facility experience.

AWS says one UAE availability zone cannot be restored

AWS said it cannot restore access to resources held only in one UAE availability zone hit in the strikes, and that damage in Bahrain spread across several zones (Help Net Security).

Talent signal: hyperscalers and banks in the region will compete harder for disaster recovery and resilience leaders.

Khazna and Siemens agree to trial next-generation AI power technology

Khazna Data Centers and Siemens signed an MoU covering 800V DC power, digital twins and technology trials inside Khazna's live facilities, plus engineering internships (WAM).

Talent signal: electrical engineering leaders with high-voltage DC and high-density power experience.

Oman's O-Green targets more than 200MW of AI-ready capacity by 2028

The state-backed renewables developer plans to pair its own generation with AI-ready data centres in Oman and beyond (Oman Observer).

Talent signal: a power-first entrant needs a founding data centre MD and hyperscale business development leaders.

Asia Pacific

Anthropic signs its first Australian data centre lease

Anthropic leased the first stage of Zerra DC's planned 2.16GW campus near Dalby, backed by Dexus and Macquarie, for AI inference, subject to planning and FIRB approval (iTnews).

Talent signal: APAC hyperscale delivery directors and power procurement heads for greenfield regional sites.

DayOne breaks ground on a 42MW Tokyo campus

DayOne started construction at Kodaira, Tokyo, with a 15MW first phase, while its 80MW Fuchu campus is also under way (Baxtel).

Talent signal: Japan country leadership and commissioning heads, with two Tokyo builds running at once.

Firmus reported to target an IPO of up to US$5bn

Bloomberg and the AFR reported that the Nvidia-backed neocloud was meeting investors ahead of an ASX listing (BeBeez).

Talent signal: public-company CFO, investor relations and governance hires, and more firepower to hire GPU operations leaders.

New money

New capacity

The T4X view

The week's pattern is power first, then campus. Aligned is building its own supply, O-Green is a power company moving into compute, and Siemens is rethinking power inside the hall. The leaders in shortest supply are not data centre generalists but people who have run generation, high-voltage design or grid connection at scale and can translate it to a campus. Clients who start those searches early will not be competing for the same ten names next year.