Nvidia accelerates Australia’s AI roadmap with CSIRO partnership

Nvidia has partnered with Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) to help expand the country’s domestic AI capabilities and accelerate adoption of the technology.

CSIRO hosts Australia’s new National Artificial Intelligence Centre and is set to work with partners across Australia to promote responsible and inclusive AI.

The centre was established through $124.1 million of funding as part of the government’s $1.2 billion Digital Economy Strategy to transform the country into a modern and leading digital economy by 2030.

The two organisations are teaming up on a number of accelerated computing initiatives, they revealed earlier this week. This includes applying quantum computing and digital twins for use cases across climate action and genomic medicine, which will harness Nvidia’s capabilities in graphics, scientific, and high-performance computing.

The collaboration will also focus on national AI upskilling initiatives for students, researchers, and industry professionals to improve domestic workforce readiness. A working group of domain experts from both organisations has been assembled to identify opportunities for co-innovation.

“CSIRO has been using NVIDIA’s accelerated computing platform for over a decade, and I envisage that this new collaboration will expand our efforts around AI research, startups and industrial ventures, grow a more robust local AI ecosystem, and support the launch of our new National AI Centre,” said CSIRO CIO Brendan Dalton.

The organisations added that researchers working on the industrial application of new AI solutions will have a safe place to test and iterate their models. They can access optimally configured Nvidia GPU clusters at scale and a library of software development kits and containers to accelerate data science workflows. They will also be able to trial new technologies and get needed technical support.

“We will have people to support scientists and engineers to make sure their codes are running the best way they possibly can, and to make sure they have the right training to develop the kind of algorithms they want,” said Dalton. “I think getting these things right for innovators at a national scale is the best way to grow the AI economy in Australia.”

Nvidia’s technology will be used to help CSIRO scientists on an existing AI tool that helps first responders better predict what bushfires around them will do next, informing them on appropriate firefighting tactics. Using Nvidia GPU technologies will help speed up the training of these models, said the organisations. They added that the goal of using AI for predicting weather and different kinds of natural disasters is to save lives and property.