Australian government releases national AI plan
The Australian government has launched its national AI plan, charting how it intends to build an AI-enabled economy that benefits citizens.
The plan outlines three key goals: to draw investment to Australia’s digital infrastructure and support local capability; to support AI adoption by strengthening skills across the economy; and to ensure Australians’ safety through a new AI Safety Institute.
The AI Safety Institute is backed by AUS$29.9m (USD$19.8m) of investment and is due to come into operation early next year. Its job will be to “monitor, test and share information on emerging AI capabilities, risks and harms”, bedding in a commitment to “robust legal, regulatory, and ethical frameworks and engaging internationally to protect rights and build trust”.
Tim Ayres, the country’s minister for industry and innovation and minister for science, said the plan would “accelerate the broad development and adoption of AI, ensuring every Australian can share in its benefits while keeping a careful balance between innovation and protection from potential risks”.
He added: “The National AI Plan is about making sure technology serves Australians, not the other way around… AI will help close gaps in essential services, improve education and employment outcomes and create well paid jobs in future industries.”
Government’s role
In the plan, the government outlines its role as providing “national leadership and coordination to shape the direction of AI development, adoption, and governance”. This covers implementation of policies and enabling the infrastructure, skills and capabilities needed to “lead in AI innovation”.
It aims to attract domestic and global investment in AI, and to promote “responsible practices” to foster trust and build citizens’ and organisations’ confidence in its adoption.
It said it would actively collaborate with Australia’s state and territory governments, and that it would harness international engagement to help guide national interests aligned with global norms of adoption, trust, and best practice.
Read more: Australia urged to set ‘rules of the game’ to harness the productivity potential of AI
Impacts on people and planet
Ayres stressed the role of Australia’s workers and unions in the roadmap’s success, and said that AI “should enable workers’ talents, not replace them” – though the plan touches on the need for investment in education to reskill workers whose jobs will likely be affected by AI.
As part of the plan, the country’s Future Skills Organisation has been tasked with ensuring that AI skills and training remain “responsive to the digital and AI skills needs of the future”.
Ayres emphasised that the plan would provide “clear guidance for government” when it comes to recognising the interests and challenges of “First Nations peoples, women, people with disability and regional communities”.
The plan also acknowledges the impact of AI on the environment. It outlines the potential for large datasets controlled by private firms and the public sector to train AI models that can be used to spur economic growth and said this would require the creation of new data centres but that “conventional data centre cooling systems” came with environmental risks.
Such systems consume “tens of millions of litres annually”, it said, though it added that Australian operators had adopted “innovative solutions” such as “highly efficient liquid cooling” to cut water consumption down to more sustainable levels.
Read more: AI makes water shortages harder to predict, says UK Environment Agency
APS AI roadmap
Last month, the Australian Public Service (APS) set out how it would work to maximise AI to deliver better services for citizens in its AI Plan for the Australian Public Service.
The roadmap underscored the government’s drive to “improve the AI maturity of the public sector” to produce “faster, more consistent government services, enhanced policy advice and a more capable workforce”.
The APS said its “adaptive and collaborative approach” to achieving these goals would allow it the flexibility to “realise future opportunities”.
The roadmap is built on the three pillars of trust, tools and people with consideration of transparency, ethics and governance, infrastructure, and capability building and engagement.
Under the plan, every public servant will gain access to generative AI tools and receive foundational training and guidance on using them responsibly and ethically.
The timeline for implementation of the plan covers July of this year to July 2026.
About Jack Aldane
Jack is a British journalist, cartoonist and podcaster. He graduated from Heythrop College London in 2009 with a BA in philosophy, before living and working in China for three years as a freelance reporter. After training in financial journalism at City University from 2013 to 2014, Jack worked at Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters before moving into editing magazines on global trade and development finance. Shortly after editing opinion writing for UnHerd, he joined the independent think tank ResPublica, where he led a media campaign to change the health and safety requirements around asbestos in UK public buildings. As host and producer of The Booking Club podcast – a conversation series featuring prominent authors and commentators at their favourite restaurants – Jack continues to engage today’s most distinguished thinkers on the biggest problems pertaining to ideology and power in the 21st century. He joined Global Government Forum as its Senior Staff Writer and Community Co-ordinator in 2021.
