Tech giant Anthropic has made moves to buy up Australia’s available data centre capacity as the country’s $155 billion boom continues to generate debate.The $US1 trillion company behind Claude has previously signalled that it sees Australia as a “natural fit” for its extended operations and planned to expand investment in local data centres.According to the Australian Financial Review, Anthropic has told local developers it would buy any available capacity that could be delivered by mid-2027.It’s understood, however, the company distanced itself from reports in the Financial Review it was working to secure a copyright deal with the Australian government that could involve a text and data mining exemption to train its AI models.The federal government has repeatedly said it would not change copyright laws to suit AI companies, and Labor MP Ed Husic pushed back on the reports on Tuesday.“You can only take on face value what we’ve said as a government, which is copyright laws wouldn’t change and they shouldn’t frankly,” he told Sky News.“These are some of the biggest companies on the planet … they can pay up if they want content.“We don’t need to bend over backwards to water down copyright laws and by virtue of that … the amount of money people get for the stuff that they produce.”He said people in creative industries “pour their heart into” their work and should not be expected to hand it over to hugely profitable companies for free.The former science and innovation minister said the big tech firms were looking to establish Australia’s data centre industry because the issue had become a “hot potato” in the US due to the facilities “chewing up so much energy and water”.Mr Husic said the level of demand for data centres was not actually due to capacity requirements for AI but to “satisfy the valuations of the investors”.Andrew Charlton, the Assistant Minister for Science and Technology, also reiterated that Australia “will not do a text and data mining exemption”.A spokesperson for Minister for Industry and Innovation and Science Tim Ayres said the government’s position on text and data mining exemptions “has not changed”. “Stakeholders make representations to government all the time, but the Albanese government makes its own decisions consistent with the principles set out in the National AI Plan and the Data Centre Expectations,” they said.It comes after Anthropic last month flagged its intention to offer an IPO on the US stock market, with its valuation expected to be more than $US1 trillion ($1.44 trillion).It was reportedly pursuing 1.4 gigawatts of capacity in Australia, as much as the entire data centre industry produced by the end of 2025, by the middle of 2027.An Anthropic spokesperson said it was “exploring building compute capacity in Australia”, a country that was “a natural fit given our longstanding belief that democracies should lead in AI development”. The spokespersons said its data centre plans aligned “with the Australian government’s own ambitions to become a trusted destination for sustainable AI infrastructure”. “The MOU we signed with the Australian government commits Anthropic to operating within the Data Centre Expectations set out by the government,” they said.“We’re exploring adding local capacity through our third-party partners in Australia, using infrastructure already in place. This is among the most consistent requests we hear from Australian enterprises and government agencies, particularly those with data residency requirements. “Beyond that, we’re in early conversations about longer-term infrastructure in the region, and we’ll share more as those plans take shape.”Data centres have become a flashpoint for debate in Australia with $155 billion worth of projects in the pipeline.They are set to provide the “compute” needed to power AI and other online systems to both local and global markets, but some experts have questioned the long-term economic benefits and serious energy impacts of hosting them in Australia.HSBC economist Paul Bloxham compared the data centre explosion to the liquid national gas (LNG) boom of the 2000s, saying both relied on mass imports and foreign investment.Mr Bloxham said the LNG chapter provided lessons on how to best capture the tech windfalls as Australians now debated whether taxpayers were getting a fair deal from gas exports.The Financial Review also reported on Tuesday the government was considering taking a more interventionist approach to data centres and demand operators provide “financial benefits to local communities”.The government has made clear it expects operators to supply the energy source needed to power the centres, and also add supply to the wider network.A spokesperson for Mr Ayres told news.com.au last week it was in Australia’s national interest “to have domestic capabilities in AI, so that Australia can shape this technology rather than being shaped by it”.“The Albanese government has set clear expectations for data centres and AI infrastructure built here – AI needs to work for Australians and not the other way around,” they said.Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said at the NSW Labor Conference on Sunday the world was “queuing up to invest in Australia”.“This means that if we act now, Australia can set the ground rules for AI. We can shape the future, not let the future shape us,” he said.“We can secure new jobs and investment. We can build our sovereignty and our resilience.”