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Albanese Government to Force AI Giants Such as Anthropic to Share Capacity With Local Start-ups

Australian Financial Review

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Date Published
17 Aug 2026
Priority Score
4
Australian
Yes
Created
17 Aug 2026, 04:00 pm

Authors (1)

Description

Assistant Technology Minister Andrew Charlton will outline a plan to capture 80 per cent of the AI value chain and say open-weight models have changed the game.

Summary

The Australian government is proposing a significant intervention in the AI supply chain by requiring major frontier AI developers like Microsoft and Anthropic to allocate data centre capacity to domestic innovators. This policy shift seeks to prevent Australia from being relegated to a provider of raw inputs, aiming instead to capture 80 per cent of the AI value chain through sovereign model development and infrastructure access. While primarily focused on economic competition, the plan highlights the growing importance of open-weight models and the governance of compute resources, which are central to managing the proliferation and safety of advanced AI capabilities. The initiative represents a notable Australian policy development regarding the control and distribution of the hardware necessary to run and train large-scale AI systems.

Body

PoliticsFederalData centresPrint articleRonald MizenPolitical correspondentAug 17, 2026 – 11.59pmThe Albanese government will force artificial intelligence giants such as Microsoft, Google and Anthropic to make available their huge data centre capacity to local start-ups and innovators in a bid to capture a growing share of the global AI supply chain.In a speech to the Australian National University Crawford School on Tuesday, Assistant Technology Minister Andrew Charlton will outline a plan for Australia to capture 80 per cent of the AI supply chain, spanning data centres to model development, warning Australia cannot afford to settle for the bottom 20 per cent as it had historically with raw minerals.Loading...SaveLog in or Subscribe to save articleShareCopy linkCopiedEmailLinkedInTwitterFacebookCopy linkCopiedShare via...Gift this articleSubscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe.Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? LoginLicense articleRead MoreData centresAIAndrew CharltonAnthony AlbaneseData Centre Gold RushFetching latest articles