Australia must move up the Artificial Intelligence (AI) value chain rather than simply hosting data centres, the Assistant Minister for Science, Technology and the Digital Economy, Andrew Charlton, says.

In a lecture to be delivered at the ANU Crawford School Tuesday titled “Why Australia Needs to Turn Compute into Sovereign AI”, Charlton argues Australia needs to leverage its data centre advantage and translate that into benefits and growth for the broader economy.

Charlton has given the strongest signals to date about the government’s expectation for AI companies to give support for Australian start-ups, enter research partnerships with Australian universities, and bring world-class AI talent to Australia.

“That is the express thinking behind Expectation 5 of the government’s National Data Centre Expectations – the vital connective tissue that transforms data centres from being a dry utility to a strategic catalyst that unlocks second and third round benefits for Australia”, Charlton says in his speech, released ahead of delivery.

“We can increase our economic dividend from AI by leveraging our strengths to play higher up the value........

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