Unlock Editor's Digest totally free
FT editor Roula Khalaf selects her favourite stories on this weekly newsletter.
Amazon's cloud services division has won a contract price two billion Australian dollars (1.3 billion US dollars) from the Australian government to construct three data centers for secure information sharing with allies.
Amazon Web Services already provides cloud computing services to the US and UK governments. The contract means Australia will give you the chance to raised share intelligence and military information and use artificial intelligence to analyse data.
Australia is a member of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, which also includes the USA, Great Britain, New Zealand and Canada.
Defense Secretary Richard Marles said the agreement would increase “interoperability” with the United States and “be certain that we have now a much more resilient, capable, lethal, modern and effective militia in the longer term.”
Rachel Noble, director general of the Australian Signals Directive, said using cloud-based AI would strengthen the country's intelligence work across 10 different government agencies. “It's a game changer in the best way we understand the info we hold,” she said of using AI to gather, interpret and sift through data necessary to national security.
Mike Bareja, deputy director of the cyber, technology and security unit at think tank ASPI, said the AWS contract meets the strategic imperative of Indo-Pacific allies, including Five Eyes and the smaller Aukus group, to create a data-sharing platform that goes beyond the secure exchange of confidential documents.
He argued that future autonomous weapon systems, for instance, would require data sharing and a unified cloud. “Intelligence and military operations at the moment are data operations,” Bareja said, adding that the cloud platform and AI would enable faster decision-making by government agencies and create a stronger platform for Pillar II, the a part of the Aukus pact that promotes sharing of advanced technologies.
AWS has established a robust position in “top secret” cloud contracts world wide since winning a $600 million contract with U.S. intelligence agencies in 2013. That contract was later expanded to incorporate other firms akin to Microsoft and IBM.
The UK government followed suit in 2021 when its three fundamental intelligence agencies signed a cloud contract with AWS price as much as £1 billion on the time to place AI and data sharing at the guts of their operations.
Funding for the three dedicated data centres comes as a part of Australia's existing commitment to significantly increase defence spending to organize to “resist coercion” within the Indo-Pacific as geopolitical tensions with China rise.
The country has revised its defense strategy and committed to a big modernization of its fleet. As a part of the Aukus agreement, the country will, amongst other things, deliver nuclear-powered submarines for the primary time.
The announcement of the AWS contract coincided with an incident within the Australian Parliament during which a gaggle of protesters climbed to the roof of the constructing and unveiled banners bearing the symbol of an inverted red triangle criticising the federal government's stance on the war in Gaza.
Bareja said the protest highlighted the challenges facing intelligence agencies in developing high-tech strategic capabilities but additionally coping with more fundamental security threats posed by individuals. “This dichotomy defines the safety debate,” he said.
