Why has Anthropic Hired Google Leader in Data Centre Push?

Anthropic has hired Sana Ouji, a senior energy and data centre executive from Google, as the San Francisco-based AI company accelerates its effort to build out a substantial global infrastructure portfolio.

The appointment represents a significant move for Anthropic as it assembles a team capable of delivering what could be one of the most ambitious data centre construction programmes in the tech sector.

Sana spent more than six years at Google, most recently focusing on data centre energy strategic investments and partnerships. Her departure is the latest in a string of senior infrastructure hires Anthropic has made from Google.

Anthropic's latest acquisitions show just how seriously the company is taking its recruitment strategy ahead of what is expected to be a significant expansion of its data centre footprint.

Announcing her move on LinkedIn, Sana framed the decision as a deliberate step towards greater challenge. "After 6.5 years at Google, I'm taking on a new challenge," she says.

"The past few years in particular have been transformational for the energy and data centre industry and to have had a front row seat to that transition at one of the world's leading AI companies has been a true privilege."

Infrastructure team takes shape

She joins Ariel Horowitz and Tim Hughes on what Anthropic is calling its inaugural energy team – a designation that speaks to how recently the company has begun formalising this function. Ariel, who joined in March, previously served as Deputy Director of Grid Modernisation for the US Department of Energy. Tim, meanwhile, came aboard in February from data centre firm Stack Infrastructure, where he had been Chief Development Officer.

The composition of this team suggests Anthropic is prioritising construction delivery capability alongside energy strategy. Tim's background in data centre development could prove particularly valuable as the company looks to translate its substantial financial commitments into physical infrastructure.

Google talent fuels construction pipeline

Sana is far from alone in making the crossing from Google to Anthropic. The company's Head of Data Centre Infrastructure, Winnie Leung, is a former Google executive – as is Brett Rogers, who previously led data centre construction at the firm. Brett's experience in overseeing Google's construction projects could be instrumental as Anthropic embarks on its own building programme.

Other hires from Google include Liwen Mao, now Anthropic's Data Centre Design Lead, Adam Johnson, the firm's Data Centre Electrical Lead, and Peter Sarossy, a Google veteran of 20 years, who joined in January as a data centre security engineering staff member. Zach Miller, after 17 years at Google, became Anthropic's Data Centre Operations Manager, and Soheil Farshchian, formerly a Data Centre System Architecture Lead at Google, is also believed to have joined.

Major construction commitments ahead

In October 2025, Anthropic signed a deal with Google for cloud access exceeding 1GW, including up to one million of Google's tensor processing units. In April, that relationship expanded further, with Anthropic agreeing terms with Broadcom and Google for the supply of TPUs representing 3.5GW of capacity. Separately, the company has pledged to invest US$50bn in US data centres through a partnership with Fluidstack, with Google providing financial backing for those projects.

The scale of this investment could translate into a substantial construction programme across multiple sites. According to Anthropic, the partnership with Fluidstack is expected to deliver significant new capacity, though the timeline for construction and the specific locations remain under discussion. Rival developer OpenAI has claimed in an internal memo that Anthropic made a "strategic misstep to not acquire enough compute".

Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei says that the calculus is genuinely difficult, saying that being even a year out on growth projections could be enough to "go bankrupt". Against that backdrop, the assembly of a dedicated global energy team – and the calibre of names being recruited to it – signals that Anthropic is treating infrastructure construction not as a back-office function, but as a strategic priority in its own right.