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Industry News
Australia is one step closer towards developing its first sovereign capability in the area of critical technology, with the official November opening of the nation’s first component-level IT infrastructure manufacturing facility.
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SoftIron’s Advanced Manufacturing Facility at Botany in Sydney positions Australia to take advantage of the AUKUS agreement, which will see an unprecedented level of information sharing between the US, the UK and Australia, and their industry partners.
SoftIron says manufacturing locally all but eliminates the risk of malicious state actors introducing firmware implants or so-called “back doors’’ into critical information systems.
Backed by a Defence Department innovation grant, the IT infrastructure provider’s facility is Australia’s first advanced manufacturing hub that produces ICT componentry for SoftIron’s ground-breaking HyperCloud Intelligent Cloud Fabric, the world’s first complete technology for building clouds. (L-R) SoftIron COO Jason Van der Schyff and The Hon Matt Thistlethwaite MP
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SoftIron is a venture-backed company founded in 2012 and specialises in managing IT security risks by manufacturing and assembling all of its own equipment; it offers its customers a unique security verification process. Headquartered in the UK, with offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia Pacific, SoftIron established a wholly owned subsidiary in Australia in 2020.
SoftIron Chief Operating Officer, Jason Van der Schyff said recent events had made it clear that onshoring or “friend-shoring’’ ICT supply chains was the only sure way for Australian IT providers to manage their commercial and strategic risk.
“Recent geopolitical events and the deteriorating strategic environment have exposed major weaknesses in global supply chains, particularly in the area of critical technology,” Mr Van der Schyff said.
“Aside from exposing Australian companies to an unacceptable business risk, our reliance on foreign-manufactured componentry has increased the risk of malicious state actors introducing covert hardware or firmware during the manufacturing process.
“We are seeing other Western nations like the United States move toward supply chain security in the area of critical technology with initiatives like the Chips Act,” Mr Van der Schyff said. “SoftIron is ahead of the curve here in Australia by identifying the looming challenge and putting in place capabilities to meet it.’’
“Unlike manufacturers who rely on opaque supply chains for their componentry, SoftIron offers total transparency of the design and manufacturing of hardware and software supply chains in its HyperCloud IT infrastructure,” added Mr Van der Schyff.
Through a verification process called Secure Provenance, select SoftIron customers can audit products from end-to-end to ensure they are delivered precisely as designed and specified.
The approach makes HyperCloud an ideal fit for enterprises, government and defence organisations that are especially concerned about protecting sensitive data.
SoftIron
Industry can RACE to supercomputing
Dr Michael Breedon, PhD researcher Dale Osborne and Professor Michelle Spencer (left to right) with a computer-generated representation of their work. Credit: RMIT University Director of RACE, Dr Robert Shen
RACE is now open to industry partners following its public launch last month. It is Australia’s first university supercomputing facility on the cloud and will enable industry to move from initial concepts, and testing to proven concept and commercialisation up to 80 times faster.
The AWS Cloud Supercomputing facility, or RACE, is already being used by RMIT researchers to power advances into battery technologies, photonics and medical devices.
RACE provides fast, secure and private connections powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and AARNet which RMIT has found ideal for projects demanding more speed and less delays than the internet.
Director of RACE Dr Robert Shen said the service means discoveries will be made faster.
“RACE enables researchers to test ideas and solutions up to 80 times faster compared to the existing on-premises servers,” Shen said.
“Research typically involves many failures before success: this facility lets researchers fail quickly so they can fine-tune their solutions and improve them.”
AARNet CEO Chris Hancock said high speed internet and communication services for RACE were designed to service both current and future demand.
“The network AARNet deployed for RACE is engineered to scale to 400Gbps to provide RMIT researchers with plenty of headroom for transferring massive amounts of data to AWS on demand, now and into the future,” Hancock said
Current projects
The new service is already making a difference for RMIT research groups who’ve already used RACE.
Professor Michelle Spencer has used it to analyse data and communicate a new, ultra-fast way to screen hundreds of potential molecules that could make suitable electrolytes for lithium-metal batteries, which could potentially increase storage capacity 10-fold.
“We are using RACE to analyse our data and produce high-resolution animations that help us to interpret data and communicate our research findings,” Spencer said.
Associate Professor Thach Nguyen and team at the Integrated Photonics and Applications Centre rely heavily on high performance computing to design fingernail-sized photonic chips that can plug into optic fibre networks to make our internet faster, or plug into medical diagnostic tools to analyse how cancer cells spread in real time. The team is now using RACE to conduct research that was almost impossible with standard computing power.
“Direct access to RACE means that when designing and simulating brain-like chips or creating a chip which could break the record for the world’s fastest internet, the team can run multiple processes at once with computing capability that expands and scales as needed,” said Nguyen.
“RACE has provided our team with on-demand computing power anywhere, any time to simulate our photonic chips 10 times faster than previously possible.”
This work opens the door to new opportunities including the design of chips that could make our internet faster, help drones more accurately inspect railway infrastructure, and build handheld devices to detect ovarian cancer more accurately.
Professor Matt Duckham’s team is using the computing power to design new ways to automatically pinpoint a person’s exact location using just a verbal description of the features around them. This approach could be especially important in emergencies if satellite positioning fails.
Duckham said his team now has the ability to process massive information streams including drone imagery, satellite data, data from sensor networks and crowd-sourced data that could overwhelm conventional computing facilities.
“Enabling us to analyse these huge volumes of data from new sources can help better inform evidence-based policy decisions to improve public transport, traffic, infrastructure and many other aspects of quality of life,” he said.
AWS Chief Technologist for Australia and New Zealand, Simon Elisha, said high performance computing is key to solving the most complex problems across many industries.
“AWS’s portfolio of cloud services allows researchers at RMIT to focus on ground-breaking research across a broad range of sectors, and innovate faster,” he said.
“Using AWS, RMIT can securely deliver advanced computer performance, memory capacity, and scalability.”
RACE is supported by the Victorian Government under the Victorian Higher Education State Investment Fund and represents a step change in how universities and industries access high performance computing capabilities for advanced data processing.
RACE is now officially open for industry partners with an interest in driving digital innovation in research and education.
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Businesses eyeing US market can get venture capital
Dr Cori Stewart, ARM Hub’s CEO Alok Patel, founder of Azcende
Helping Australian businesses improve their access to the US market is the driver of a new partnership between the Advanced Robotics for Manufacturing (ARM) Hub and Azcende Venture Capital.
Both Brisbane-based companies, the two will work together to accelerate new businesses and emerging and innovative technologies for national security and critical infrastructure.
“ARM Hub and Azcende will collaborate in the development of programs and networks and leverage funding for Defence, Defence Industry, advanced manufacturing, and related supply chains to help secure a pathway into US markets for local manufacturers,” ARM Hub CEO Dr Cori Stewart said.
Azcende, a new Venture Capital (VC) fund established by former Deloitte Smart Cities and Cyber Risk Partner, Lani Refiti; entrepreneur and technology leader Alok Patel; software developer and start-up advisor Peter Laurie; and US-based engineer Matt Yeoh, is tapping high net worth investors for its $30 million fund.
Azcende CEO and Managing Partner Alok Patel said the fund will focus on investing in Australian critical and emerging technology businesses that can take advantage of the United States marketplace.
“Azcende has partnered with ARM Hub due its success in positioning itself with strong technological expertise, arising from its deep academic networks,” Mr Patel said.
“With Azcende’s focus on national security and critical Infrastructure, we are excited to bring global commercialisation experience combined with venture investments to activate critical and emerging technologies together with ARM Hub’s technological expertise.”
He said Australian industry faces major problems, from supply chain security, staffing availability and skill levels.
“Emerging technology presents the most pragmatic manner to solving these issues – whether it be AI, reducing the complexity of skills required, or robotics and autonomous systems increasing the production capacity of smaller teams,” Mr Patel said.
“Manufacturing is core to industry.
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