Investment in Australian-owned data infrastructure

Question

The National Reconstruction Fund invested $200 million in Macquarie Technology Group in March 2026 for sovereign cloud and cybersecurity. a. Beyond that single investment, what is the Government's concrete plan for Australian-owned, Australian-operated data infrastructure that is subject to Australian law and not accessible under foreign data-access regimes? b. None of the $51.9 billion in endorsed data centre projects appears in the Budget as a Commonwealth investment in sovereign Australian-owned AI infrastructure. When does the Government plan to invest in AI capability that Australia owns rather than hosts? c. With Australia's most sensitive government data and AI capabilities increasingly dependent on platforms controlled by United States companies, what is Australia's sovereign fallback if access to those platforms is disrupted?

Answer

See attached response.

Documents

• Question with answer (PDF) (opens in a new tab)
• BI-033_Liddle_ Investment in Australian-owned data infrastructure_DISR.pdf (opens in a new tab)