Artificial intelligence and data centres

Strategic location as a data centre hub

Australia is the ideal location to build green data centres to power Asia’s digital transformation. Australia has 17 subsea cables to Asia and the world. More are being built.

• Services to Asia: Australia can back up data storage and processing facilities for customers in Asia.
• Competitive power costs: Average industrial energy prices are low in Australia – compared to hubs in Asia, including Singapore.
• Incentives for green data centres: The Australian Government helps fund new green data centres.

Western Australia and the Northern Territory are likely to emerge as suppliers of data centre services to Asia. This is due to proximity, existing undersea cables and a shared time zone.

Australia emerges as an AI powerhouse

Australia already has a fast-growing AI ecosystem. Success is built on home-grown talent. This includes AI centres in our universities and our own National Artificial Intelligence Centre (NAIC).

Australia aims to become a host for AI data centres in the Asia-Pacific region. Our competitive advantage is built on:

• world-class research into AI by the CSIRO
• proximity to markets in Asia and established commercial relations.
• industry collaboration, led by NAIC.

Investors can have confidence in our strategic commitment to AI. Demand for AI jobs is growing faster in Australia than in comparable economies.

The Government has listed AI as one of 7 technologies that is critical to our national interest.

• The Government is investing A$101 million in quantum and artificial intelligence. The goal is to help businesses integrate these technologies into their operations.
• The CSIRO co-ordinates our AI activities. The organisation has also set out our national AI ambitions. This includes exports of products and services (Source CSIRO, Australia’s artificial intelligence ecosystem) (PDF 4.1MB).

Australia will build on our advantages in skills and green energy to become a hub for datacentre and AI services to Asia.

The CSIRO is home to one of the largest applied AI capabilities in the world. The National Artificial Intelligence Centre coordinates Australia's expertise and capabilities in AI. The CSIRO has more than one thousand researchers working on AI and data science projects.

Most major Australian universities have departments that specialise in AI.

• Australian National University: Intelligent Systems
• RMIT University: AI Innovation Lab
• University of Adelaide: Institute for Machine Learning
• University of Queensland: UQ AI Collaboratory
• University of Sydney: Sydney Artificial Intelligence Centre
• University of Technology Sydney: Australian Artificial Intelligence Institute.

The Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre provides researchers with access to high-performance computing, quantum and supercomputing facilities.