News

Ex-McKinsey manager named govt’s ‘chief consultant’

Private sector consultants turned public servants will lead the Albanese government’s new in-house consultancy, which was swamped with almost 1000 applications for less than 20 roles. The top job...

Home-grown AI is a key building block for our future

What were the most important achievements of the Morrison government? I asked Microsoft Bing chat. Alongside managing the COVID-19 pandemic, the AI chatbot nominated AUKUS, the trilateral security pact...

Q-CTRL teams with IBM in time for ‘quantum utility’ era

Q-CTRL’s software has been integrated into IBM’s quantum computing service, pairing the Australian startup’s technology with some of the world’s best hardware as the “era of quantum utility” approaches....

Senate committee proposes new Big Tech regulatory body

A digital platforms coordination body should be created by the federal government to address competition concerns presented by Big Tech companies like Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon, a...

Gig Guide: Fresh CEO for research translation venture BioCurate

The new chief executive of the University of Melbourne and Monash University’s research translation joint venture BioCurate is Dr Kathy Nielsen, who moves from her role leading Monash’s commercialisation...

The Australians building biological data centre tech

“In our lab in Melbourne, we’re building the world’s first neural data centre,” explains Hon Weng Chong, whose fusion of biological computing with traditional tech has caught Amazon’s eye...

Fostering talent that is hiding in plain sight

The Australian Public Service in 2023 is faced with an extraordinary opportunity to reset its contribution to supporting the government of Australia and all Australians.  Four events occurring almost...

A year of ChatGPT: 5 ways the AI marvel has changed the world

OpenAI’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT was unleashed onto an unsuspecting public exactly one year ago. It quickly became the fastest-growing app ever, in the hands of 100 million...

Salesforce pricing leaked to Microsoft in first NDIS CRM tender

Confidential Salesforce pricing information was accidentally leaked to Microsoft in a 2019 tender for the National Disability Insurance Scheme’s new customer relationship management system, documents reveal. The blunder forced...

Labor-led committee calls for manufacturing commissioner

A Labor-controlled parliamentary committee has recommended that a National Advanced Manufacturing Commissioner be appointed to promote ‘sovereign, smart, sustainable’ domestic manufacturing. The national role would facilitate nationwide advanced manufacturing...

Australia races ahead with defence export control reforms

The Albanese government is racing ahead with controversial reforms to export controls that will introduce a “licence-free environment” for technology sharing between AUKUS partners at the expense of local...