Buy local is the answer to $278bn question on AI tsunamiNational think tank CEDA found examples of how AI could halve the time and cost of tasks within complex approvals. With $278bn in the construction pipeline across Australia, the payback is clear.Ed ChungTechnologyOne CEO Ed Chung backs the government’s initiatives to buy local when it comes to AI capabilityGift this article2 min read2 hours agoThe increasing urgency in the tone of senior policymakers talking about AI this year has been impossible to miss.Our world and all our lives are going to be transformed by the transition from IT to AI. We can own it and be in a position to control it, or we can have it done to us and watch the benefits flow overseas. It’s already clear why AI is an unstoppable tsunami. The efficiencies and benefits it brings are like nothing we’ve seen in our lifetimes.TechnologyOne last year reimagined how AI could help the local governments we serve unblock the sometimes painful, slow and cumbersome processes for residents wanting to have development applications approved.These approvals are complicated because councils have to balance the interests of everyone in their community affected by a new development.But with national targets to address the housing crisis already behind by tens of thousands of homes, speeding up approvals is a national imperative.Working with councils, we applied AI to cut approval times by about 40 per cent without compromising the integrity of the process.Inspired by this, we commissioned respected national think tank CEDA (Committee for Economic Development Australia) to look at what AI might be able to achieve on major projects crossing multiple tiers of government and with complicated environmental standards to meet. It found examples of how AI could halve the time and cost of tasks within complex approvals. With $278bn in the construction pipeline across Australia, the payback is clear.Leading the charge among senior policymakers has been the Assistant Minister for Science, Technology and the Digital Economy, Andrew Charlton. More than any other, he has laid out the moment facing every Australian business and government agency.But Dr Charlton puts this in a bigger – and scarier – context.Australia can build an industry that creates AI capability, and keep its data, its skills, and the value of the technology here. Or it can rent the AI from foreign companies, and watch people overseas become rich off it. And perhaps boldest of all, he has said what few policymakers have had the courage to lay out: every organisation, both government and private, is making that choice when they decide where to spend their money.When they have a competitive Australian choice, they should buy local, just like millions of Australians are choosing to do at their local store every day.His words are stirring, but every Australian tech business dealing regularly with Australian bureaucracies is living the gap between rhetoric and reality. Local R&D developing locally owned intellectual property is the core of the Australian AI future that Dr Charlton is championing.Importantly, it is also a future where the AI we rely on is owned by companies accountable to our laws and standards. In this time of historic opportunity – what Dr Charlton describes as a sliding doors moment – the first action should be to ask bureaucrats to answer a simple question when they spend our money: “If you did not buy Australian, why not?”Ed Chung is CEO of TechnologyOne.This content was produced in association with TechnologyOne. Read our policy on commercial content here.Read related topics:Artificial IntelligenceMore related storiesSales SponsoredRules targeting risk reduction in critical infrastructure sectorsNew rules apply to critical infrastructure in nine sectors: energy market operators, electricity assets, gas assets, liquid fuel assets, water, broadcasting, domain name systems, freight services and freight infrastructure.Read moreSales SponsoredMarketing leaders of tomorrow are training on AI todayTechnology alone doesn’t create a competitive advantage. Adobe’s Rachel Thornton explains why the organisations winning the AI race are focusing on building employee confidence with practical, day-to-day literacy.Read more