Australian population (2023): 26 million
Australia’s online population: 25.3 million / 97.6%
Australia’s median age: 38.1 years
Perth USAsia Centre: Australia and the Indo-Pacific for high school students
- Video: An intro to HullBot, using robotics to clean vessel hulls in Sydney Harbour, speeding water transport and removing the need for marine-toxic hull paint in the process / full item
- Australia: Brightwater Care Group launches Tech Innovate Challenge, a hackathon focused on tech solutions for reducing social isolation among older Australians / full item
- Asia Pacific: Proofpoint cybersecurity report finds 88% of Forbes Global 2000 firms have not implemented highest level of email authentication, leaving stakeholders at risk of fraud / full item
- Australia: Fleet Space and Koloma natural hydrogen company partner to identify hydrogen-forming geological formations using real-time 3D subsurface imaging from space / full item
- Australia: Dept of Home Affairs directs government entities to prevent installation of Kaspersky products and services, citing concerns over Russian government influence and possible control / full item
- Australia: Gilmour Space targets mid-March for maiden flight of Eris rocket, potentially to be the first Australia-built rocket to reach orbit, and the first orbital launch from Australia since 1971 / full item
- Australia: ATech cloud hosting and web dev firm opens new round of Boost Incubator Program, seeking 3 tech startups with high growth potential / full item
- Australia: 2025 Independent Reserve Cryptocurrency Index finds 32.5% of Australians currently own or have previously owned crypto / full item
- Australia: CDC data centers major commences construction a 150MW data campus outside Melbourne, projecting a $2.7BN local economy boost and creation of thousands of jobs / full item
- Australia: Goodman Group property and logistics major to raise Au$2.54 billion to fund data centre growth, with plans to issue 119.42 million shares / full item
Also available:
‣ Asia technology newsletters in February
–
‣ Indo-Pacific Insight – geopolitics, daily
–
‣ Critical technologies report – February 2025
- Australia: Extraterrestrial Power unveils mass-manufacturable solar cell it estimates to be ten times more affordable than current space-application solar cells / full item
- Australia: Commonwealth Bank venture-scaling arm, x15ventures, selects Gable, a US-based data change management platform, as winner of annual Xccelerate program / full item
- A quick intro to 7 Australian and New Zealand startups that between them raised Au$42.8M in the week to February 21st / full item
- Australia: An intro to the 11 scale-ups selected for the LaunchVic 30X30 program, working on solutions in healthcare, documentation, construction, data security and more / full item
- Australia: Gilmour Space Technologies preps for first orbital launch with final approvals received for its maiden test flight of a 3-stage rocket / full item
- Australia: Victoria state government confirms 400MW / 1800MWh Baranduda battery energy storage project, and 40 MW Brewster Wind Farm project, are in the planning fast lane / full item
- US, UK and Australia rolled out sanctions on zServers, a Russian ‘bulletproof’ crime-focused hosting service, and on individuals allegedly operating it, with Dutch police taking 127 servers offline / full item
- Australia: Allegro Energy lands government award of Au$1.85M to scale water-based redox flow battery energy storage solutions, using no scarce materials and recyclable components / full item
- Australia: Melbourne Airport is to house one of the world’s largest vertical farms, with Stacked Farm preparing a Au$150M facility for the airport, and adding to Gold Coast footprint / full item
Fostering Order in the Indo-Pacific: What the European can learn
- Australia: Government imposes additional sanctions on Russian individuals and organizations involved in 2022 cyberattack against Medibank Private / full item
- Rise of cryptocurrency loans in Australia spark concerns about financial ‘contagion’ / full item
- TPG, owner of Vodafone and iiNet, bans workers from using DeepSeek, going as far as to recommend staff not use the application at home / full item
- The State of Australian Startup Funding 2024 Report is now available – hit the link: / full item
- More than half of Australian VCs said a startup they invested in failed in 2024′ / full item
- The Australian Space Summit & Exhibition 2025 is set for 27 & 28 May in Sydney, with nominations now open for the Australian Space Awards / full item
- Australia: Beaten Zone Venture Partners, a specialist defence-tech VC firm, has secured over $10M in commitments, with sights on $60M close inside 18 months / full item
- Australia: An intro to 10 of the highest funding rounds for female-led startups in Australia in 2024 / full item
- ICYMI: Elon Musk’s Grok AI chatbot app is soon to be available for Android users, with pre-registration for testing available in Australia, Canada, India, The Philippines, and Saudi Arabia / full item
- The Australian Electoral Commission has relaunched its ‘Stop and Consider’ campaign, aiming to educate around the risks of misinformation and AI-driven manipulation / full item
- Australia: Cell Bauhaus gains Gates Foundation grant of Au$3M to further develop ‘digital twins’ tech to to investigate how genetic changes alter cellular behavior / full item
- 5 Australian startups secured $3.6M collectively from NASA’s ‘Moon to Mars’ supply chain capability grants program / full item
- Australia: NSW EdTech Summit is set for 11-12 June in Sydney / full item
- Australia: Westpac invests Au$10Min Lawpath to offer customers affordable legal services / full item
- Australia: DeepSeek is to be banned from all federal government devices over concerns around national security / full item
- Australia: Victoria state startup agency, LaunchVic, is offering grants up to Au$300K to VC funds and angel groups to set up in Victoria and back local startups / full item
- Australia: MyGigsters fintech raises Au$1.1M with focus on helping gig economy workers track income and spending to provide hyper-personalised, actionable insights / full item
- India-Australia Space collaboration is set to grow with the PRISM 2 initiative, building on a range of similar space-focused partnerships / full item
Indo-Pacific Insight: Daily LinkedIn newsletter
Critical tech news: February 2025
- PsiQuantum announces photonics solution to quantum computing chips manufacturing capable of achieving volumes needed for commercial viability, partnering GlobalFoundries…
- AheadComputing, co-founded by former Intel engineers and execs, raised $21.5M to build tech around RISC-V open standard chips architecture, alternative to current proprietary tech…
- Collateral damage in semiconductor supply chains: “…in its 2019 Corporate Social Responsibility report, TSMC admitted its facilities in Hsinchu consumed 63,000 tons of water a day.”
‣ Critical technologies in the news: Feb 2025 report >
Asia tech newsletters:
Weekly in February 2025
- To February 22nd on LinkedIn and via Substack
- To February 15th on LinkedIn and via Substack
- To February 8th on LinkedIn and via Substack
- To February 1st on LinkedIn and via Substack