# Anthropic, OpenAI Urge Australia to Relax AI Training Ban > Source: > Published: 2026-09-22 10:03:01+00:00 **September 22, 2026, (Inside AI)** — Two of the world's most valuable artificial intelligence companies have asked Australia's parliament to soften a copyright prohibition that currently blocks them from training models on Australian creative work. **OpenAI** and **Anthropic** filed submissions this month to a Joint Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence, arguing that a narrow, conditional exemption would protect artists while unlocking domestic investment. Australia has ruled out a broad copyright exception, effectively barring the mostly US-domiciled firms from training models on Australian soil. The committee will deliver its report in **November**, leaving lawmakers a short window to reconcile competing demands from AI developers and the publishing and creative sectors. The stakes extend beyond copyright. Both companies have tied the training question to infrastructure commitments already underway. OpenAI signed an offtake agreement with Australian data centre developer **NextDC** for a planned facility in **Sydney**, while Anthropic was named last week as a partner for a data centre in **Queensland**. Those projects could face operational limits if training remains legally off-limits. **Read:** **NYT Filings Reveal Microsoft, OpenAI Knew of 'Theft' Risks in AI Training** Anthropic, maker of the **Claude** chatbot, acknowledged in its filing that broad copyright exceptions have failed to win political support. **"Anthropic accepts that broad exceptions from copyright ... have not received widespread support and have been ruled out by the government,"** the company wrote. **"As an alternative, we believe that the government could permit AI model training through a narrow form of conditional approval."** The company added that it would consider investment or other conditions designed to support Australian creators and cultural endeavours. OpenAI, developer of **ChatGPT**, framed its request around access to publicly available information. It called for what it described as a balanced copyright framework that lets models learn from public data while giving rightsholders chances to collaborate. Australia is not alone in confronting this tradeoff. The **European Union**'s AI Act, phased in since 2024, requires general-purpose model providers to disclose training data summaries and honor text and data mining opt-outs. **Japan** adopted a more permissive stance in 2023, allowing broad data scraping for AI training unless rights are explicitly reserved. **Singapore** has pursued industry-led guidelines rather than hard mandates. Australia's choice will signal whether mid-sized economies can attract AI infrastructure without alienating creative industries. Domestic opposition remains firm. Authors, publishers, and media organisations have resisted exemptions that would let commercial models ingest their work without consent or payment. Their argument rests on a simple claim: training is a commercial use, and commercial use requires licensing. The companies counter that conditional approval would not amount to a free-for-all. Anthropic's proposed model would require government sign-off, potentially tied to investment or cultural funding obligations. That structure resembles a licensing regime more than an open exception, though details remain undefined. **Read:** **Sued for seeking 'safer AI': Lawsuit against Google, xAI, Anthropic, and OpenAI** Timing matters. The parliamentary inquiry's November report will shape legislation expected to take effect next year. If Australia maintains its prohibition, AI firms may continue training models elsewhere and deploy them locally, capturing Australian users without contributing to a domestic training ecosystem. That outcome would undercut the economic case for local data centres, which rely on proximity to compute-intensive workloads. Neither company has said it would halt Australian investments if the ban persists. But the submissions make clear that training access forms part of their investment calculus. The committee now holds the deciding vote on whether Australia becomes a training hub or remains a deployment market.