Professor Ian Langford

So there's a social contract dimension.

And then there's the reality of a changing global order where there are those in the system that seek to do us harm.

We know every day there are denial of service and penetration activities on our critical systems in the hundreds, if not thousands, coming from nation states that say they're going to do something on one hand but do something on the other.

They wish to do us harm.

So that securitization of those systems, protecting that critical information so others can't bring harm to us both now or indeed if they can warehouse that information to weaponize it in the future is a really important dimension of bringing data, bringing it onshore, making it sovereign, and then being able to have control over its distribution.

So it's about privacy and social contract on one hand.

It's about national security on the other.

And the people responsible to do that is government.

and its partners that will deliver these services and maintain them over their life.

So I think, you know, an expression of confidence that this technology is consistent with a future version of Australia where we are the best versions of ourselves.

So this is undeniably an opportunity.

We have the people and skills, we've got the research foundation, we've got the infrastructure and we have the access to energy to be able to be a world leader on this.

We've also got the kind of democratic and sort of capitalist-based financial systems that allow hyperscalers to invest here for the long haul with confidence that they will get a return on investment.

We've also got, I think, broadly, agreement across all elements of politics that understand this opportunity is fleeting.

So the world will not wait.

There is a hub and spoke that will happen in the global south.

We have providence and we have ownership on whether it will be in this country or not.

Yeah.

It's not about a version where we only warehouse our own data and place sovereignty around the ability to lock it down.

Okay.