Amazon wins contract to store 'top-secret' Australian military intelligence in data cloud

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Top secret Australian military and intelligence information will soon be stored on a computing cloud under a $2 billion partnership with American company Amazon Web Services. The government has unveiled details of the project while insisting Australia will maintain complete sovereignty over its classified secrets.

Transcript

00:00This project has been in the works for a couple of years.

00:05We were first given some details late last year by the head of the Office of National

00:11Intelligence, but we're now getting precise costs and details of how this will operate

00:18in Australia.

00:20It's essentially a large data-sharing initiative.

00:24It will involve an electronic computing cloud run by Amazon Web Services, one of the largest

00:30tech companies in the world.

00:32The government's saying it'll be at an initial cost of $2 billion, a partnership between

00:38Amazon and the Australian Signals Directorate, which will administer a lot of the data-sharing

00:45that will occur inside Australia's intelligence communities, the various spy agencies, as

00:50well as the Australian Defence Force.

00:53And data is increasingly seen as an important tool in modern warfare, with the large amounts

00:59of information that need to be exchanged between various military assets and military partners.

01:05There will be a lot of collaboration as well.

01:08But what this project will involve is three data centres built at secret locations in

01:15Australia to store this information, and we're assured that it will remain under Australian

01:21sovereignty, though the infrastructure involved is being provided by Amazon, as I say.

01:27Let's hear from the Defence Minister, first of all, Richard Marles.

01:32Whilst it is a cloud-based environment, I want to make clear that this data will be

01:39held in Australia in facilities which are secure and purpose-built for this capability.

01:47The head of the Australian Signals Directorate, Rachel Noble, discussed how her organisation

01:52and others are already harnessing this cutting-edge technology to be able to scour through vast

01:59amounts of data, so machine learning, artificial intelligence is also a key section of the

02:07second pillar of AUKUS, so the idea of getting computers to read through all these vast amounts

02:15of data and make conclusions, possibly even areas to be targeted in future operations.

02:22There are a lot of ethical questions involved with this as well, and the spy chiefs did

02:27talk about how Australia's potential adversaries were already making inroads in this area.

02:34You can imagine, with a huge data cloud project like this, AI will also be playing a key role.

02:40Let's now hear from Andrew Shearer, the head of the Office of National Intelligence.

02:46This will be a game-changing capability for our 10 intelligence agencies.

02:51It will help us collaborate more, integrate more closely, and make sure that we keep pace

02:57with our most important partners.

03:00That was Andrew Shearer speaking in Canberra at the announcement of this partnership.

03:05$2 billion, as we say, is expected to be operational sometime in 2027.

03:11Similar projects are already underway in the United States and the United Kingdom, Australia's

03:15AUKUS partners, and the Government says there will be a need to recruit around 2,000 people

03:21with top-secret security clearances to help administer this new data cloud.

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