In the age of AI, Australia stands today at the dawn of something truly transformative. This report lays out a clear, positive vision and practical actions to make Australia a global AI leader by 2028.
Our approach to AI must be rooted in optimism, not fear
This report adopts a positive, opportunity-focused perspective, grounded in the conviction that AI, guided by human principles and smart policy, can be a powerful force for good. We believe AI can augment human capabilities, create new kinds of jobs, and make existing ones more rewarding and less burdensome. But achieving this future requires deliberate choices and concerted action.
The ultimate goal here isn’t technological supremacy. It’s about building a better future for all Australians, one where we have greater power and agency in our lives.
Australia’s AI opportunity
Giving us the power to do more
AI is already empowering us to do, see, and understand more as we go about our lives, from using Google Maps, to voice assistants, and email spam filters. It’s helping doctors diagnose diseases earlier and more accurately, and helping heavy industries operate more safely.
AI is already making workplaces better and lifting productivity through machine learning systems, computer vision, recommendation engines, natural language processing, robotics systems and decision support systems. The opportunities for more AI integration are almost endless.
Our national productivity challenge
With this much opportunity at stake, we must seize it with urgency as a national priority. This technological shift comes at a critical moment. Long-term economic growth, the kind that lifts living standards for everyone, doesn’t happen by accident. It hinges on our ability to innovate, to invest wisely, and to quickly embrace new technologies that allow us to do or make more without more effort or resources. This is known as productivity, and it has languished in Australia for decades. The great leaps forward we have made in productivity have been a result of new technologies – electricity, mechanisation, computers. The next frontier is AI. Australia must make big moves immediately to ensure we do not miss the opportunity.
A mindset shift
Like any new technology, there are risks which we must address head-on. But we have been balancing risks with opportunity since the discovery of fire. What matters are the choices we make – how we develop our AI capabilities, how we deploy them, and how we ensure they serve our national interests and reflect our values. We could choose to do this with a fear-first mindset, but a brighter future will come from being focused first on opportunity.
Undoubtedly, Australian businesses embracing AI’s potential will profoundly transform our national productivity. In just a few short years, we are seeing over 74% of Aussies who use AI saying it’s helping them get more done at work. To ensure every Australian business captures the value of AI, we need to intentionally drive adoption, have sensible evidence based guardrails and strategically invest in the areas where we can become global leaders. At Google, we know this is possible because it’s already happening. Through our Google Digital Future Initiative, we’re collaborating with leading Australian organisations to apply AI in areas like improving healthcare, energy, and protecting native wildlife. This proactive, collaborative approach is key to establishing Australia as a global leader in AI, and ensuring a promising future where technology empowers us to solve our most complex problems.
At CommBank we understand the enormous potential and the risks of artificial intelligence. That’s why we’re working to lead our industry and Australian businesses forward, innovating to improve customer experiences, enabling the power of AI to support our people, and helping put in place the better safety and security standards.
AI offers Australia an incredible opportunity to drive economic growth, enhance productivity, and create new jobs. By investing in AI infrastructure and skills, we can secure our position at the forefront of this wave of technological transformation and boost national performance, while not losing sight of, and addressing the potential risks.
I see a big opportunity for Australia, because as a country we can have many of the right ingredients to deploy AI successfully at scale. You need the right infrastructure from connectivity to energy, strong security and stability, policy settings that encourage investment, and the right safeguards. We will absolutely need future-ready digital infrastructure, and that takes time, so we need to step into how we’re going to enable Australia’s digital future.
Defining Australia’s AI context
The productivity imperative
Australia’s future economic prosperity depends heavily on our ability to lift productivity. AI represents the single greatest opportunity to do this in a generation, addressing some of our most prominent and enduring productivity challenges.
Australia needs practical frameworks, clear guidelines, and accessible tools they can implement today. In the game of productivity, the winners will be those who adopt and use AI most broadly – not just in areas that are complex and meaningful, but also those that are simple and mundane. It’s about helping people unlock those incremental gains that, when combined, create massive momentum.
Global competition
Countries are investing heavily in AI, recognising its strategic importance. This is a race where early movers gain significant advantages – attracting talent, securing investment, setting standards, and building competitive market positions. Australia cannot afford to be left behind.
We must act decisively and strategically, fostering our own sovereign capabilities and attracting investment and talent from abroad. Australia is lagging in AI readiness compared to regional peers, which underscores the need for immediate action.
A human-centric approach
Technology must serve humanity. Our focus must be on harnessing AI to benefit people and businesses – not merely technological advancement for its own sake. This means prioritising applications that augment the workforce, allowing dedicated professionals to spend more time on the human aspects of their roles. For a nation with a relatively small workforce compared to global giants, AI offers a way to maximise the impact of our talented people.
Crucially, we must confront Australia’s AI anxiety head-on. We need a national conversation, grounded in facts, that addresses fears while focusing on the massive potential for positive transformation. The narrative matters immensely. When optimism leads, we create the space for AI to safely deliver its benefits for all Australians.
Leveraging Australian advantages
Our political stability and strong democratic institutions provide a reliable foundation. We boast a highly skilled and educated population and world-leading research institutions.
Our AI research community, while small, remains globally competitive. In 2023, Australia had about 0.3 per cent of the global population but contributed 1.6 per cent of all AI research – overperforming by nearly five times.
We have vast land resources – especially in contrast to our regional neighbours – critical for housing the data centres that power AI. Our potential for cost-competitive renewable energy is enormous, offering a path to sustainable AI development.
By strategically leveraging advantages, we can create an environment that attracts global investment, nurtures local talent, and builds a vibrant, self-sustaining AI ecosystem.
We began using AI methods in structural biology at UNSW in 2021. Since then, deep learning has driven some of the most transformative advances in biomolecular science in decades. What started as a structural biology tool is now accelerating discovery and significantly reducing costs across personalised medicine, drug development, agriculture, and biotechnology. AI is reshaping how we tackle complex challenges in healthcare, medicine development, climate resilience and food security, and is essential for Australia to remain competitive and self-reliant in the face of an ageing population, climate change, and an increasingly uncertain geopolitical landscape.
Generative AI has ignited our imagination and is transforming the world around us, opening up huge possibilities for the economic growth, prosperity and potential of Australia. Capturing this opportunity will require robust investment in infrastructure, skills, and balanced regulation and governance frameworks that help deliver AI responsibly, while fostering innovation. Getting this approach right is essential to keeping Australia competitive at the global level.
At Infosys, we are proud to lead as an AI-first company, helping clients worldwide navigate their AI transformation journeys. In Australia, we are deeply committed to partnering with businesses to harness AI responsibly and effectively, driving innovation, and growth. At the same time, we are focused on upskilling the workforce to ensure they thrive in an AI-powered future.
At Rio Tinto, we see AI not just as a tool for efficiency, but as a catalyst for safer, smarter, and more sustainable operations. By embedding AI into our planning and decision-making, we’re unlocking new value for our people, our partners, and the communities where we operate.
Case studies part 1: AI already making workplaces better and lifting productivity
To accelerate internal productivity and drive innovation, IBM implemented its “Client Zero” strategy, positioning itself as the first and primary user of its AI technologies. This approach involved embedding AI across operations, simplifying complex workflows, automating manual tasks, and modernising key functions like IT, HR, and client support. By acting as its own initial client, IBM rigorously tested its offerings, gathered essential early feedback, and ensured its products were scalable for customer deployment. This internal transformation yielded significant efficiencies; IBM surpassed its initial $2 billion annual productivity savings target, achieving a $3.5 billion run rate by the end of 2024. The Client Zero initiative provided a proven, real-world framework for IBM’s clients undertaking similar transformations, while the generated savings were reinvested into further innovation, creating a growth cycle benefiting both internal operations and market offerings.
Unlocking the benefits of AI for innovation, productivity and growth requires a foundation of secure, resilient and reliable connectivity, and that translates to massive demand for digital infrastructure assets. We’re building our high-speed Intercity Fibre Network to meet this demand.
When complete, Telstra’s Intercity Fibre Network will be the largest terrestrial intercity network in Australia, and is a critical piece of our $1.6 billion strategic investment to meet connectivity demand for the next generation.
The Intercity Fibre Network is designed to deliver high capacity, ultra-low loss connectivity between capital cities and regional centres. It features dual-cable architecture: an express, long-distance path between capital cities, and a foundation path, creating an opportunity to provide access to regional and remote areas via on and off ramp infrastructure along the network.
With 60 to 80 Tbps of capacity per fibre pair, the network is engineered to support the massive data throughput required by AI workloads, hyperscale cloud services, and edge computing.
Built by Telstra InfraCo, the network enhances Australia’s digital sovereignty by providing more secure, higher-performance infrastructure for enterprises, hyperscalers, government, telco carriers and other retail service providers.
Long-term digital infrastructure investments will be critical for Australia to remain competitive in the future. With the Sydney–Canberra route going live on 25th June 2025 and the Canberra–Melbourne route on track for early FY26, we’re laying the groundwork for a resilient, AI-ready Australia.
In November 2021, Google launched its Digital Future Initiative (DFI) in Australia, committing $1 billion over five years to enhance Australia’s R&D ecosystem through digital infrastructure, research capabilities, and technology partnerships. This initiative adds to Google’s existing operational R&D investment in Australia of more than half a billion dollars annually. It aims to bolster the digital economy, create employment opportunities, and contribute to solving significant national challenges.
The DFI encompasses several components designed to support Australia’s R&D ecosystem. Key elements include the establishment of Google Research Australia, a dedicated AI research team in Sydney whose role includes working with Australia’s AI research community to build the AI R&D ecosystem; partnerships with national institutions like CSIRO and universities, focusing on AI, quantum computing, and environmental sustainability; investments in cloud infrastructure accessible to the research community; skills development programs like Google Career Certificates targeting high-demand digital skills; and support for R&D-intensive startups through the Google for Startups Accelerator program.
Annualised, Google’s DFI investment is equivalent to approximately 1 per cent of Australia’s annual business expenditure on R&D (BERD) ($20.6 billion in 2021-22) and 0.5 per cent of gross expenditure on R&D (GERD) ($38.8 billion in 2021-22).
The release of large-scale datasets derived from Google DeepMind’s models, specifically AlphaFold for protein structure prediction and GNoME (Graph Networks for Materials Exploration) for materials discovery, represents a significant development at the intersection of AI and fundamental science. These initiatives have generated unprecedented volumes of predictive data, aiming to overcome long-standing bottlenecks in structural biology and materials science. AlphaFold, in particular, has already had a demonstrable and transformative effect, providing highly accurate structural predictions for over 200 million proteins and fundamentally altering research practices in the life sciences.
The profound scientific impact from AlphaFold is evidenced by exceptionally high citation rates for its key publications and its rapid integration into research workflows and major biological databases. With over two million users in 190 countries so far, it has accelerated research, particularly in the early stages of drug discovery, and shifted the focus of structural biology from structure determination to structure interpretation and application. Industrially, AlphaFold is being adopted by biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies to enhance R&D efficiency, primarily by improving target identification and structure-based drug design.
Economically, AlphaFold’s longer-term contribution will be seen through efficiency and success rate improvements for medicine development, and lower costs and improved outcomes for healthcare consumers. Realising the broader macroeconomic benefit of AI for Science depends critically on factors like data accessibility, tool diffusion, complementary investments in skills and infrastructure, and the scientific community being able to validate AI-enabled research results.
Our vision
This paper outlines a clear, positive vision and practical actions to make Australia a globally recognised AI leader by 2028. Our vision is clear, ambitious, and achievable.
By 2028, Australia will be a global leader in AI – shaping trusted, transformative technologies that power economic growth, improve lives, and build a more
resilient nation.
Focus areas and actions
Australia’s AI Agenda
The vision requires a focused effort across six key areas. Within each area, we propose actions designed to foster innovation, attract investment, unlock productivity gains, manage risks responsibly, and make Australia a more prosperous and resilient nation.
The primary challenge for Australia is the rapid pace of AI evolution and the risk of falling further behind. Adoption of AI in the public sector is one of the most important levers that governments have to build confidence in AI. However, government uptake of AI in Australia has been slow.
98 per cent of businesses in Australia are small and medium enterprises, many of which find themselves at a crossroads between technological necessity and practical constraints. Our overall adoption speed will be largely determined by this sector, and we must do more to support their uptake of AI.
Opportunity
Innovation capacity is very important to a nation’s strategic and economic power, but speed of adoption and usage throughout an economy can be even more important. By becoming world-class in how innovation is adopted and adapted, Australia can punch above its weight economically and geopolitically. This ‘fast follower’ and ‘smart adapter’ strategy can drive productivity gains, create new industries, enhance public services, and address unique national challenges.
Actions
Action 1: Government as an exemplar: pioneering AI in public services
Action 2: Boost funding for the National AI Centre (NAIC)
Australia needs to be training more data scientists and machine learning engineers. It also needs to develop broad AI literacy across the entire economy. Australia also needs the tradespeople that will build and maintain the digital infrastructure required.
Australia faces stiff global competition for top AI talent, and we need clear strategies to attract and retain the best minds.
Opportunity
The prize for getting this right is immense: an AI-skilled workforce gives Australian people and businesses a fighting chance in a rapidly transforming world. These workers will be the drivers of higher national productivity and enhanced global competitiveness. Businesses equipped with AI-savvy employees will innovate faster, operate more efficiently, and create higher-value products and services. Start-ups led by world class talent will be enormous wealth creators for this country. And a workforce ready to deploy AI at scale will draw global investment and anchor high-value industries here in Australia.
Regulation in the age of AI is a tightrope walk. We need rules that build public trust and protect citizens from genuine harm, such as deepfakes manipulating opinions, biased algorithms perpetuating inequality, or breaches of data privacy.
Effective AI regulation starts from the premise that the application and use of AI is overwhelmingly positive, but that risks at the edges need to be mitigated. Finding the right balance, ensuring our approach aligns sensibly with international partners, and addressing existing legislative challenges is a complex but critical task.
Opportunity
Getting regulation right is also a source of competitive advantage. A clear, predictable, and trusted regulatory environment makes Australia a more attractive place for AI investment and deployment. Businesses can operate with greater certainty, and consumers can adopt AI technologies with more confidence. By developing a reputation for responsible AI governance, Australia can lead globally, influencing international standards and attracting businesses that prioritise ethical practices. Smart regulation also fosters the social license necessary for AI to flourish.
Actions
Action 5: Implement clear, risk-based regulations
Action 6: Establish the Australian AI Safety Institute (AAISI)
Data centres serve essential functions with demand being driven by the increasing uptake of cloud services as our economy continues to digitally transform. Australia faces a global race for data centre infrastructure with investment capital and cutting-edge hardware are fiercely contested.
But infrastructure can’t be built overnight. The countries that build quickest will be better placed to win the global race. ‘Speed-to-build’ is a critical determinate of where AI investment is going. At the moment, Australia is a slow and expensive place to build, with complex planning and approval processes for major infrastructure projects.
Opportunity
By 2030, global capital expenditure on data centres for AI processing loads will reach US$5.2 trillion. We have abundant land, political stability, and some of the world’s best renewable energy resources in solar and wind. This combination makes Australia a highly attractive location for building the large-scale, green data centres the world needs, positioning us as a key AI infrastructure hub for the Asia-Pacific region.
Building this capacity not only supports our domestic AI ambitions but also creates significant economic activity through construction, new jobs, and attracting further tech investment. It’s about building the digital infrastructure for a 21st-century economy, for both AI and cloud services.
Australia ranks among the worst in the OECD for data availability, data accessibility and government support for data re-use. Improving this and facilitating better data usage will help realise productivity gains.
Data is the lifeblood of AI. Without access to high-quality, diverse datasets, even the most sophisticated algorithms cannot learn effectively. However, much of the potentially valuable data in Australia remains locked away in silos – held by different government agencies, private companies, or research institutions.
Opportunity
If we can overcome these challenges, the rewards are substantial. Open data ecosystems fuel AI innovation. Governments should facilitate responsible data-sharing between public and private sectors to accelerate AI development. Curating high-quality, diverse, and representative Australian datasets can become a significant competitive advantage, allowing us to train AI models that are uniquely attuned to our specific context, needs, and values.
Actions
Action 8: Reform copyright through the National AI Capability Plan
Action 9: Expand frameworks for public-private data access and sharing
Action 10: Establish the Australian National Data Library (ANDL)
Action 11: Create secure private sector data collaboration frameworks
AI is more than a field of study in itself. It’s becoming a universal tool for accelerating discovery across virtually all domains of science and innovation. Australia needs to equip researchers across all scientific disciplines with the AI skills needed to leverage its power in their own fields. We must also ensure researchers have practical access to the high-quality data and powerful computing resources needed to speed up scientific discovery.
A persistent issue in Australia is bridging the ‘valley of death’ between research breakthroughs and commercial success – from January to June 2023, Australia contributed 1.6 per cent of the world’s AI research but only 0.24 per cent of AI patent applications.
Opportunity
Improving R&D in AI and diffusing AI capabilities across all R&D areas would keep Australia at the forefront of science, creating breakthrough discoveries and nurturing new, high-value industries. A thriving R&D ecosystem acts as a magnet, drawing in investment, attracting world-class talent and creating a virtuous cycle of innovation and economic growth.
Actions
Action 12: Empower researchers and enhance research infrastructure
Action 13: Establish the AI Research Consortium (AIRC)
Action 14: Fix R&D settings to support AI development and adoption
Action 15: Create the AI Commercialisation Accelerator (AICA)
Action 16: Establish a national AI missions program
To learn more about the key focus areas and their actions in detail, download the report.
Our vision is clear, ambitious, and we aim to achieve it by 2028.
The timeline is structured across three years in a phased approach to development. All actions should start as soon as possible in 2025, with a clear statement of ambition from the federal government. Completion dates vary with each action’s complexity and its dependency on other actions.
Year 1: 1 July 2025 – 30 June 2026
Establishing the essential foundations
Action 1: Government as an exemplar: pioneering AI in public services
Action 2: Boost funding for the National AI Centre (NAIC)
Action 3: Create a National AI Skills Compact
Action 5: Implement clear, risk-based regulations
Action 7: Simplify data centre development
Action 13: Establish the AI Research Consortium (AIRC)
Year 2: 1 July 2026 – 30 June 2027
Capacity building and infrastructure development
Action 4: Reform AI skills development pathways
Action 6: Establish the Australian AI Safety Institute (AAISI)
Action 8: Reform copyright through the National AI Capability Plan
Action 14: Fix R&D settings to support AI development and adoption
Action 15: Create the AI Commercialisation Accelerator (AICA)
Action 16: Establish a national AI missions program
Year 3: 1 July 2027 – 30 June 2028
Advancing collaboration and optimising data utilisation
Action 9: Expand frameworks for public-private data access and sharing
Action 10: Establish the Australian National Data Library (ANDL)
Action 11: Create secure private sector data collaboration frameworks
Action 12: Empower researchers and enhance research infrastructure
It’s time we end a decade of productivity going nowhere. Employees are fed up with a mountain of admin tasks, poor customer experiences, and lower company growth. Agentic AI and the digital labour revolution are the breakthroughs Australian businesses and governments need. Companies will be able to scale with a 24/7 digital labour workforce augmenting their human teams. Employees will be freed to contribute their best work and focus on the customer. Customers will get what they need sooner, enjoying a more personalised experience at every touchpoint. This is why we’re investing $2.5 billion in Australia, supporting Australian leaders to shepherd their businesses through this transformation, and why we’re committed to embedding trust and safety in AI systems.
SEEK uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to better match people with jobs. Our AI models learn from job searches, applications, career movements and skills matches on the SEEK platform to recommend roles to job seekers and candidates to employers that might otherwise be overlooked. This enables both jobseekers and employers to discover relevant opportunities more easily and ensures better and more informed decision-making for jobseekers and employers alike.
This Report highlights Australia’s urgent productivity opportunity that could be addressed by AI. It sets a clear path for global leadership through collaboration between government, industry, and academia to unlock AI’s potential, boost business productivity, expand markets, improve public services, and enhance our economy and the lives of Australians wherever they may live and work. Australia simply cannot afford to miss this opportunity.
Ten years ago, AirTrunk was just an idea – to reshape digital infrastructure in Asia Pacific and Japan. Today it is the leading home for cloud and AI in the region. As we look forward, it is clear that AI presents us with a once in a generation opportunity to drive economic growth and productivity globally. For Australia to seize this moment, we must continue to prioritise an ecosystem that enables investment in essential digital infrastructure.
Case studies part 2: AI already making workplaces better and lifting productivity
As Australia seizes the opportunities presented by AI, demand for digital infrastructure is growing rapidly. AirTrunk is scaling to meet this demand while prioritising sustainable resource management.
The increased demands for cooling in AI-ready data centres requires innovative solutions to ensure stewardship of finite resources. AirTrunk, in collaboration with Microsoft Cloud and Nalco Water, released a whitepaper in April 2025, titled Sustainable Resource Management for Data Centre Cooling to explore the key factors influencing data centre cooling, the impact of expanding cloud services, the evolving regulatory landscape, and how these elements are expected to shape data centre development in the future.
The whitepaper outlines key takeaways to achieve more sustainable data centres including: the need to balance the energy-water nexus for optimal resource efficiency; the utilisation of metrics like power and water-usage effectiveness for sustainable financing and benchmarking; encouraging the adoption of strategies to reduce, reuse, and replenish water resources and driving industry efficiency standards through stakeholder collaboration.
AirTrunk has also pioneered large-scale liquid cooling innovation in the region, able to support tens to hundreds of megawatts including AI deployments, while targeting better outcomes for energy efficiency. Through significant investment in resources, research, technology development and solutions, AirTrunk achieved its first deployment of 20MW of liquid-cooled capacity in 2024.
These innovations, designed to drive further energy efficiency, complement AirTrunk’s commitment to achieve Net Zero emissions by 2030 for Scope 1 and 2 emissions.
Maintaining focus on sustainable resource management and deploying innovations like liquid cooling will help to ensure we embrace the transformative power of AI in a sustainable way.
Brisbane Catholic Education (BCE), encompassing over 140 schools in the Archdiocese of Brisbane, has embarked on the largest global rollout of Microsoft 365 Copilot in K-12 education. This initiative aims to enhance productivity and reduce burnout among educators by leveraging Generative AI technology.
A trial of the technology demonstrated significant benefits, with educators saving an average of 9.3 hours per week on administrative tasks, information searches, and lesson planning. One of the Principals in the trial highlighted that AI integration is transforming education by freeing educators from administrative burdens, allowing them to focus on student learning and wellbeing.
The reduction in workload is crucial, given the high attrition rates and mental health challenges faced by educators. A 2023 report by the Black Dog Institute revealed that nearly half of Australian educators were considering leaving the profession due to burnout. AI tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot offer a solution by reigniting educators’ passion for teaching. Importantly, the rollout is being underpinned by a training program for users to ensure safe and productive use of the technology, and strong data security and governance measures.
Structural biology is the study of the three-dimensional structures and interactions of biological macromolecules, such as proteins and nucleic acids, which underpin most cellular functions. The integration of deep learning through tools like AlphaFold has revolutionised the field, enabling rapid and accurate structure prediction with broad applications in drug discovery, biotechnology, and precision medicine.
To accelerate this transformation, the UNSW Structural Biology Facility (SBF) adopted a “research first” strategy, becoming a testbed and primary user of deep learning tools including AlphaFold2, OpenFold, and ProteinMPNN. By embedding these models into experimental workflows, the SBF streamlined structure determination, reduced reliance on labour-intensive validation, and significantly accelerated the transition from sequence to insight.
The SBF’s work has benefited a wide range of UNSW researchers, while also contributing nationally through collaborations with the Australian BioCommons, Pawsey Supercomputing Centre, and National Computational Infrastructure (NCI). These partnerships have helped benchmark tools, optimise HPC workflows, and support broader access to AI-enabled structural biology across Australia. By serving as both an early adopter and enabler, the SBF has played a key role in shaping best practices and ensuring these technologies are scalable, reliable, and accessible to the wider research community.
Salesforce has implemented over 50 AI-powered tools to enhance employee productivity. These tools focus on automating routine tasks, improving information retrieval, and streamlining support processes. Notably, the AI-powered Slack app, Einstein, assists employees with tasks such as scheduling, summarising meetings, and answering general inquiries. In one quarter, Einstein processed nearly 370,000 queries, saving employees an estimated 50,000 hours of work.
For its development teams, Salesforce introduced CodeGenie, an AI-powered coding assistant that automates tasks like code completion and workflow integration. This tool has significantly boosted developer productivity by reducing manual coding efforts.
Salesforce’s Agentforce, an AI-driven platform, has been instrumental in automating customer support tasks. Internally, AI agents resolve 84% of customer queries, allowing the company to reassign 2,000 support roles to more complex tasks.
The integration of AI has improved operational efficiency and productivity.
In September 2024, the University of Adelaide and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia announced a strategic partnership to advance research and bolster Australia’s AI capability.
The CommBank Centre for Foundational AI, within the Australian Institute for Machine Learning (AIML) aims to keep Australia at the forefront of foundational machine learning and AI innovation. Key objectives of the partnership include:
Attracting top AI talent to Australia: Leading AI researchers are recruited to the centre and CBA through hybrid appointments, which will combine academic rigor with industry relevance.
Industry-academia collaboration: Facilitating knowledge transfer through internships, workshops, and seminars, promoting a symbiotic relationship between industry needs and academic research.
Building AI capability in Australia: Foundational researchers are at the heart of any connected tech and innovation ecosystem.
Research and publications: Generating high-impact research publications and sharing findings that will contribute to the global body of knowledge in AI
Demonstrating the impact that can come from applied research programs and close collaboration between Australia’s leading researchers and companies, the CommBank-AIML partnership has already resulted in a new ‘deep learning’ model which has increased the speed for critical data processing functions within the Commonwealth Bank, including its fraud detection and customer servicing systems.
The path forward
This isn’t just an AI race, it’s a productivity race: Australia must seize AI opportunities to lift our languishing productivity. The foundational investments we make in adoption, regulation, skills, infrastructure, data and R&D today will be the bedrock for long-term economic prosperity and global competitiveness.
