People gather for picnics beside the Harbour Bridge in the suburb of Kirribilli on September 19, 2021 in Sydney, Australia. Covid-19 restrictions have eased for people in NSW who are fully vaccinated.
James D. Morgan | Getty Images News | Getty Images
San Francisco, London, Montreal, Paris, and New York have all developed a reputation for being hotbeds of artificial intelligence research over the years.
Sydney and Melbourne, Australia’s two biggest cities, have not. But that could be about to change.
The move has been welcomed by AI researchers in Australia who told CNBC that there have been limited opportunities for AI gurus in the country over the years.
Stephen Merity, an Australian AI researcher who now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, told CNBC that Google should have launched Google Research Australia years ago, adding that there are many well-known luminaries in the field from Australia.
“They almost all had to leave Australia to get opportunities,” he said. “Those who stayed were under-utilized, including those at Google Sydney.”
Google works on a handful of projects in Sydney but the scope of the search giant’s research has been relatively limited compared to the likes of Mountain View, where Google is headquartered, London, Zurich and Tokyo.
Jonathan Kummerfeld, a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney, told CNBC that none of the big technology companies had labs in Australia until very recently.
Amazon opened a lab in Adelaide, while Oracle and IBM have set up AI labs in Melbourne. The likes of Facebook and Twitter have offices in Australia but they don’t have significant teams of AI researchers there.
“The more the industrial research ecosystem in Australia grows, the more other companies will consider opening offices,” said Kummerfeld.
“University departments have been robustly growing over the last decade as enrollments in computer science have gone up, and more faculty means more postdocs and more PhD students, but that’s a relatively small number of permanent jobs in the scheme of things,” he added.
New Sydney headquarters
Google’s investment will also be used to expand Google’s cloud computing infrastructure in Australia and fund partnerships with local universities and other organizations.
The investment package — dubbed the “Digital Future Initiative” — is expected to create 6,000 jobs and support an additional 28,000. It was launched at an event attended by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison where Google officially opened a new Australia headquarters in Sydney.
“The announcement by Google is a $1 billion vote of confidence in Australia’s digital economy strategy,” Morrison said.
The investment comes after U.S. tech giants were criticized by Australian lawmakers earlier this year for failing to pay local news publishers for content that gets shared on their platforms. In response, Google Australia’s Managing Director Mel Silva threatened to block Google Search in the country.
Australia then became the first country in the world to make it a legal requirement that large technology firms including Google and Facebook, now Meta, pay for news content on their platforms.
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up more than 100 points in late-morning trading, helped by strength in base metal and utility stocks, while U.S. stock markets were mixed.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 103.40 points at 24,542.48.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 192.31 points at 42,932.73. The S&P 500 index was up 7.14 points at 5,822.40, while the Nasdaq composite was down 9.03 points at 18,306.56.
The Canadian dollar traded for 72.61 cents US compared with 72.44 cents US on Tuesday.
The November crude oil contract was down 71 cents at US$69.87 per barrel and the November natural gas contract was down eight cents at US$2.42 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$7.20 at US$2,686.10 an ounce and the December copper contract was up a penny at US$4.35 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up more than 200 points in late-morning trading, while U.S. stock markets were also headed higher.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 205.86 points at 24,508.12.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 336.62 points at 42,790.74. The S&P 500 index was up 34.19 points at 5,814.24, while the Nasdaq composite was up 60.27 points at 18.342.32.
The Canadian dollar traded for 72.61 cents US compared with 72.71 cents US on Thursday.
The November crude oil contract was down 15 cents at US$75.70 per barrel and the November natural gas contract was down two cents at US$2.65 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was down US$29.60 at US$2,668.90 an ounce and the December copper contract was up four cents at US$4.47 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 11, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was little changed in late-morning trading as the financial sector fell, but energy and base metal stocks moved higher.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 0.05 of a point at 24,224.95.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 94.31 points at 42,417.69. The S&P 500 index was down 10.91 points at 5,781.13, while the Nasdaq composite was down 29.59 points at 18,262.03.
The Canadian dollar traded for 72.71 cents US compared with 73.05 cents US on Wednesday.
The November crude oil contract was up US$1.69 at US$74.93 per barrel and the November natural gas contract was up a penny at US$2.67 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$14.70 at US$2,640.70 an ounce and the December copper contract was up two cents at US$4.42 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 10, 2024.
