Prime Minister Albanese: Office of AI, Mandatory Standards
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese delivered a major speech on artificial intelligence at Sydney University on Wednesday 15 July, and ARM Hub CEO Professor Cori Stewart FTSE was pleased to be there among the invited guests.
The Prime Minister announced a new Office of AI within the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, a set of mandatory Australian Standards for AI to be brought to Parliament early next year, and firm rules for large data centres on energy, water and location. His challenge to the nation: don't just adopt AI, design it, make it, and build the capability here.
Cori shared her response in InnovationAus this week, welcoming the ambition and adding a practical perspective from six years of helping Australian manufacturers put advanced technologies to work.
Her argument: the new Office of AI will do its best work if it prioritises industrial AI, where algorithms meet the physical economy. The biggest productivity gains won't come from helping office workers write faster emails. They'll come from improving how Australia manufactures medicines, processes critical minerals, grows food, and builds defence capability.
"Sovereignty is not secured simply because servers are located on Australian soil," Cori wrote. "It is secured when Australian businesses own the industrial data, engineering expertise and manufacturing capability that AI depends upon."
With Australia's manufacturers overwhelmingly SMEs, Cori sees a real opportunity: Australia can become the best place in the world for SMEs to adopt safe, sovereign and commercially valuable industrial AI.
As she put it: "The Office of AI must spend as much time on the factory floor as it does in the data centre."
The piece has been positively received across the innovation and manufacturing community.