Description

Freshly appointed Tech Council of Australia chief executive Damian Kassabgi has renewed the organisation’s commitment to building tech skills within the Australian workforce and is pressing for policy reform to accelerate the process. Mr Kassabgi used the organisation’s flagship event at Parliament House in Canberra to highlight the massive economic opportunity presented by the adoption of AI-based products and services, and to light a fire under the policy response needed to help build an AI-capable workforce. Australia will need 200,000 AI workers by 2030 to realise that opportunity – up about 500 per cent the 33,000 AI workers right now. The opportunity to the economy is measured in the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Summary

Damian Kassabgi, the new CEO of the Tech Council of Australia, emphasizes the urgent need for policy reforms to develop a robust AI-capable workforce in Australia. Highlighting the potential economic gains from AI adoption—estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars—Kassabgi stresses that Australia needs to significantly expand its AI workforce to 200,000 by 2030, a substantial increase from the current 33,000. This focus on skill-building and policy support underscores Australia's strategic approach to harnessing AI for economic growth, although the article does not deeply engage with existential or catastrophic AI risks.

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