🇦🇺 Thrilled to share this piece in the The Australian Financial Review by Tess Bennett about Sovereign Australia AI and the journey we're embarking on to build Australis - Australia's own foundational language model. I couldn’t be prouder to be building this alongside my mate and Co-Founder Simon Kriss This isn't just about building another AI model. It's about ensuring Australia maintains its digital sovereignty and voice in an increasingly AI-driven world. We shouldn't be dependent on decisions made in Washington, Silicon Valley, Beijing or Europe about how AI understands and represents our Australian culture, values, and way of life. Yet to achieve this isn’t easy and it takes scale to compete, so we’ve made a massive investment in compute and have acquired 256 NVIDIA Blackwell B200 GPUs hosted in NEXTDC's secure Australian data centre in Melbourne, and managed by our colleagues at SHARON AI What makes me particularly proud of what we’ve done so far: ✅ Ethical from the ground up - We're committing $10M to compensate copyright owners, working WITH creators rather than against them ✅ Built for Australia, by Australians - From the ground up, built, trained and inferenced onshore, here in Australia, and compliant with our privacy and copyright laws ✅ Customers & Partnerships In Place - We partnering with some amazing Aussie organisations to help them solve some of Australia’s AI challenges. The partnerships we can speak about include ACS (Australian Computer Society), UNSW Canberra & GT Systems Australia, with more to follow! The path to digital sovereignty doesn't require billions, it requires vision, ethical principles, and the determination to ensure Australia's voice isn't lost in the global AI conversation. We're proving that sovereign AI can be built responsibly, affordably, and with respect for the creators whose work makes it possible. Australia's digital future should be in Australian hands. Let's build it together. 🚀 Special thanks to Craig Scroggie, Andrew Leece, Kieran Habojan, Dan Mons, Sudarshan Ramachandran, Rhod Brown, Brett Bonser, Melissa Hamilton, Josh Griggs, Rhett Sampson and so many more. #ai #sovereignai #llm #gpt #innovation #australia #australian https://lnkd.in/gnF8N3mR
Peter Grzybowski
6mo
This is an interesting and exciting initiative Dr Troy Neilson. The challenge is huge, but your approach is considered and balanced from both an ethical and a compliance angle. It's a refreshing take on this kind of innovation. I'm curious, though, how are you navigating the sheer volume of data needed for a foundational model and the energy costs that come with such a large compute cluster? It must be a tricky balancing act. We probably have some of the highest energy costs across the globe. The ones with the "billions" can build energy farms at the datacentre, hoover up various data sets or generate vast volumes of synthetic data, which aids in the speed of training models. Just thinking out loud and wondering how you guys are approaching it. You don't have to answer in the comments. Anyways, I'm looking forward to following your progress and wishing the team all the best on this journey. 💪 👏
Natalie C.
6mo
I know this is a simplistic view, but if an Australian AI capability helps optimize.....er optimise spelling, you've already won! 😵💫 Cheering for your success Dr Troy Neilson
Amanda Johnstone
6mo
Thrilled to be building this with you! This foundation work now will cement the models our grandchildren use here in Australia: Australis!
Rhett Sampson
6mo
Dr Troy Neilson Congrats. Super pleased to be working with you. We have only scratched the surface. An Aussie LLM combined with Aussie #SPAN_AI has the potential to be the foundation of a $trillion sovereign industry. You have already found huge applications for SPAN-AI we hadn't even thought of! Looking forward to many more. Carpe diem.
Tiarne Hawkins
6mo
So excited to be on this journey.
Yas Milani
6mo
Big news for Australians, and not just the AI crowd. We might finally get a homegrown GPT that actually understands our sense of humour… and doesn’t feel the need to flatter every silly idea we throw at it.
Beaudine Moses
6mo
100% this - "Ethical from the ground up" & "Built for Australia, by Australians" Congratulations Dr Troy Neilson, Simon And Sovereign Australia AI
Bill Triantis
6mo
Exciting to see where this goes. All the best 💪 sounds like it's going to be great. I look forward to tracking your progress.
This is such an important initiative for Australia! At the company I work for, #Fujitsu, we have been taking this message to the market for some time now and I couldn’t agree more on the need for sovereign AI. It’s not just about building models, but about trust, ethics, and ensuring our digital future is in Australian hands and that AI reflects our culture, values, and way of life. I would love to explore how we can support and strengthen what you are building.