AUKUS won’t work without seamless information sharing and data exchange between the partner nations and their private sectors.
And getting that right will demand the establishment of a common federated cloud-based platform that leverages artificial intelligence (AI), plus reforms to procurement processes within Defence to better harness private-sector innovation, and a cultural shift in Defence towards rapid and flexible technology adoption.
Together, those moves will strengthen Australia’s strategic capabilities and its partnership with Britain and the US.
In today’s strategic environment, the balance of power is shifting to those who can harness technology to swiftly interpret and act on data. Australia’s legacy Defence computing infrastructure, operating multiple information system silos, is inadequate for the demands of modern technology-driven warfare. AI, with its broad applications—from planning and logistics to enhancing command and control systems and managing uncrewed vehicles—offers immense potential to revolutionise data processing and decision-making. While AI can be deployed in traditional computing environments, its true potential is best unlocked when it’s supported by powerful, scalable IT systems that can handle vast amounts of data efficiently.
Recognising these issues, Defence is advancing a multivendor cloud solution at the Secret classification level, aimed at enhancing agility and networked operations. Although AI doesn’t strictly require cloud infrastructure, integrating it within a cloud-based platform makes it much easier to manage and extract insights from the large volumes of data generated by modern sensors, ensuring that Defence remains agile and capable in a rapidly evolving threat landscape.
However, the progress made by Defence in Australia, as well as by the US and Britain in their similar migrations to classified cloud environments, falls short of what is required for AUKUS. While these initiatives will strengthen domestic information sharing, they won’t address the need for a common, secure platform that facilitates collaboration among all three partners and their defence industrial bases—the key missing piece in the structural scaffolding for AUKUS.
Establishing a federated classified cloud-based platform interconnecting all three nations could revolutionise information sharing and some aspects of digital resourcing among them. The platform would enable the AUKUS partners to share classified datasets, share workloads across each other’s clouds, provide geographical redundancy and enhance their technical edge by enabling the joint development of AI models, for instance.
Enabling appropriate industry access to that common platform could be a catalyst for collaborative innovation. Industry across the AUKUS nations could develop, acquire and deploy capabilities together faster and create new opportunities for economic growth and jobs. Such a collaboration space could lead to the development of organic industry partnerships and supply chains without direct Defence engagement, which would be enormously beneficial to Defence. For industry participants, achieving a certain level of cyber maturity would be necessary, and Defence could potentially fund the required training. The collaboration space would also need to be designed to properly protect intellectual property and commercial interests to be successful.
To fully leverage the potential of this common platform, however, Australia must reform its defence procurement process and better engage small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The current system, built on processes and requirements of a previous era, is biased towards primes and large contractors, stifling SMEs’ participation, despite their critical role in developing cutting-edge technology.
Initiatives such as CASG 2.0 and the Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator are steps in the right direction, but they are insufficient on their own. This will be particularly important if the technology development envisioned within AUKUS Pillar 2 is to succeed. Work stream 8 of Pillar 2 is information sharing, highlighting the importance of overcoming the cultural and technology issues discussed here.
The Australian government must create an ecosystem so that SMEs can thrive in the presence of major defence capability providers, and investors can be engaged to support their work, by reforming Defence systems, processes and policies. This approach would assist Australia’s industry and innovators to scale further and move faster to capitalise on the much larger British and US markets.
Ultimately, the true challenge lies in fostering a fundamental cultural change. The transition to the cloud should not be seen as an IT upgrade but as a comprehensive digital transformation with a focus on people.
Training is required for the whole workforce. Leadership must grasp the strategic value of cloud technologies and align that to mission objectives to set the vision and drive cultural change; and business units will need to develop a clear understanding of their requirements and engage closely with capability providers to align them with the best technical solution, which might or might not be cloud based. Additionally, business processes must be updated to realise the speed and efficiency benefits inherent in cloud technologies and AI.
Similarly, the current procurement process, marked by long decision cycles, small grants and limited contract arrangements, currently hinders SME engagement. While Defence must uphold longstanding core principles of procurement—including due diligence, value for money and fairness—it must also evolve into a more agile and risk-tolerant bureaucracy. This necessary cultural shift requires a strong understanding of industry, particularly SME business models and incentives, alongside a commitment to change longstanding behaviours within government procurement agencies.
AUKUS is a long-term partnership marked by incremental progress. Establishing advanced information-sharing platforms, improving procurement processes and systems and engaging in cultural change should be recognised as significant achievements and important progress, alongside advances in missiles and drones.