Treasurer Jim Chalmers called on the select participants at his productivity summit to bring bold policy ideas with them to Canberra this month, and it’s fair to say that Scott Farquhar has taken him at his word.
The Atlassian co-founder and Tech Council chair did a remarkable thing this week, delivering a televised speech to the National Press Club almost entirely about artificial intelligence and the infrastructure that supports it. With some of the nation’s most senior political journalists in the country engaged and interested and seeking better understanding.
That’s a mainstream televised conversation about industry development policy – but not focused on car manufacturing, or steel or minerals processing, but rather on software and data.
All of which is new for this country. That, in itself, is interesting.
Scott Farquhar says that until the NPC this week, he hadn’t given a major speech since delivering the Bradfield Lecture in 2014. He should make these contributions more often.
But there were definitely some eyebrows raised on more than one of his heroically bold ideas. The speech was only half finished when I started getting text messages.
You can read the full speech here. Or you can watch it here to also see the Q&A with media. Or read the InnovationAus coverage here.
There is a central question that Mr Farquhar seeks to answer: How does Australia maximise the opportunity presented by AI?
Where he has raised many questions is in his suggestion that Australia enable the establishment of “digital embassies” as part of a strategy for attracting data centre investment into Australia.
He gave the example of Ukraine hosting sovereign government data in The Netherlands, and Singapore hosting government data in Malaysia, and said Australia could be the host country of choice for backup data for governments across the region.
These ‘digital embassies’ could be located in Australia, but subject to the laws of their nation of origin. Hmmm.
But he also seemed to suggest that it would be attractive to foreign data centre and AI operators to set up in this country if a similar framework were enabled for commercial data centres – and to make it more attractive for AI training factories.
This seems wild, putting anything processed in such data centres outside of Australian law.
There are many questions. The Australian Taxation Office would have questions. So would the eSafety Commissioner. And the Copyright Agency. And probably the Director-General of National Security too.
The other big story this week was the maiden flight of Gilmour Space Technologies’ orbital rocket known as Eris. This was a huge moment in the development Australian space sector, and the development of sovereign launch capability.
The flight was short, under 20 seconds, but was a massive step forward for the company, and will be a massive relief for the company, which has been carrying a huge burden of expectation.
Speaking to InnovationAus on Thursday, chief executive Adam Gilmour said while he would of course have liked more flight time, getting off the pad was a key objective that was met. He’s happy.
With a first launch under his belt – and with calls of congratulations from Industry minister Tim Ayres and Australian Space Agency CEO Enrico Palermo – it’s on to the next one.
The company will spend the next weeks and months deconstructing the lessons learned from Eris Testflight 1 and move on to Testflight 2. You can watch video of the launch here.
And keep your eye out over the weekend – we will publish the full interview with Adam Gilmour as he takes a deep dive into the experience of the maiden launch.
Do you know more? Contact James Riley via Email.