Australia Provides $17 Million to ‘Artificial Intelligence Adopt’ Program

The Australian government is providing $17 million (US$11.1 million) to assist small and medium businesses in adopting artificial intelligence (AI).
This new taxpayer funding will establish five new “AI Adopt” centres around the nation.
Launched by Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic, the program is designed to help businesses adopt and integrate AI “safely” into their work practices.
Each of these centres will be worth between $3 million (US$2 million) and $5 million (US$3.3 million) and companies or research organisations can apply to develop them.
The centres are set to provide specialist training to small and business enterprises to assist them to “develop skills” to manage AI.
Once established, the centres will offer their services to businesses free of charge.
Minister Husic said the network of centres would give businesses clear and direct advice on integrating AI into their work systems.
“Harnessing the power of AI will enhance productivity helping to crack one of the biggest challenges facing Australia.”
This announcement, made while Mr. Albanese was in the United States, included funding for cloud computing and AI infrastructure.
Microsoft vice-chair and president Brad Smith described this as the “largest investment in Microsoft’s 40-year history in Australia.
Following this announcement, Mr. Albanese met with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in San Francisco where he advised the government would explore the use of AI within the public service in a partnership with Microsoft.
The regulation aims to protect democracy, the rule of law, and environmental sustainability from high-risk AI while making Europe a leader in AI.
This includes safeguards on general-purpose artificial intelligence, biometric identification limits, and bans on social scoring.
Fines range between 35 million euros (US$38 million) or 7 percent of global turnover to 7.5 million euros (US$8 million) or 1.5 percent of global turnover.
The text of the proposed deal still needs to be adopted by the parliament and the council to become EU law.
“Thanks to the European Parliament’s resilience, the world’s first horizontal legislation on artificial intelligence will keep the European promise—ensuring that rights and freedoms are at the centre of the development of this ground-breaking technology.”