TDS CRC

Impact Overview

Introducing an opportunity for your organisation to be at the forefront in AI development and integration in Australia

AI and associated digital systems development is rapidly changing the business and regulatory landscape in Australia.

Most organisations don’t have access to the expert skills to develop, adopt or to integrate new products or processes. However, rapid implementation of AI is critical for organisational efficiency, profitability and growth.

The Trustworthy Digital Society CRC (TDS CRC) is seeking interest from organisations who want direct access to top-tier talent and faster development of AI innovation and services, for local and global customers.

This is an area that is being strongly supported by Government policy and is a critical enabler within the Australian National Research Priorities across sectors including, Energy, Health, Agriculture and Digital Security.

“This is a sliding doors moment for Australian businesses. If we wait, we risk becoming a small regional AI customer and price taker. This is our opportunity to create a platform to lead and become price makers in a global market. The CRC will support partners to rapidly develop products and services, navigate and design the regulatory systems to deliver trust for end-users.”
(Matt Healy, Interim CEO, Trustworthy Digital Society CRC)

Opportunity for Your Organisation

By joining the CRC, you gain world-class expertise, resources, and innovation capability to capture value from AI in a rapidly evolving and regulated landscape, accelerating both operational efficiency and the creation of new products and services.

Challenges we will tackle together:

Bridging Capability Gap: Overcoming internal skill and resource constraints to deliver AI initiatives. Turning technical innovation into scalable commercial solutions that meet the highest standards of data integrity, ethics, and regulatory compliance.
Building Trusted Ecosystems: Addressing ecosystem complexity, informing regulatory development for consistency and practicality, and building trust in products.
Accelerating AI Integration: Accelerating fit for purpose Australian AI integration into products and services before global competitors set the benchmark.

Partnership means more than participation; it’s about shaping the agenda to accelerate your strategic objectives. Together, we’ll design and deliver initiatives that tackle sector challenges and create tangible commercial and societal impact.

While the strength and success of this CRC is access to experts and rapid development of AI products, for every dollar invested you will at least double or triple your investment through the CRC leverage mechanism.

Strategic Focus

This CRC is designed for measurable industry impact, reducing cost, de-risking innovation, and accelerating growth for partners across sectors.

By 2035, PwC estimates AI adoption could add almost 15% to global GDP, with over AUD $4.7 trillion in business value already in play across the Asia Pacific this year. Yet most organisations struggle to move from experimentation to scalable commercialisation (PwC, ‘Australia poised to reap benefit through decade of AI-driven growth,’ April 2025).

We target that gap, focusing on the AI services layer to turn research, infrastructure, and regulatory alignment into enterprise-ready solutions that generate tangible returns for Australian industry.

Core Operating Pillars

Accelerating Australia’s AI Advantage

The TDS CRC is built on four strategic pillars, each designed to deliver tangible value and competitive advantage for our partners.

BUILD: Ideas to Impact

Enable partners to lead, not follow, in the global AI market.
Fast-track early-stage AI concepts into market-ready products and services.
Retain and grow Australian intellectual property through a “trust-by-design” approach.

SCALE: Infrastructure for Growth

Ensure your AI solutions scale securely and sustainably, from pilot to global platform.
Provide shared access to world-class compute, data, and engineering expertise.
Build the digital backbone for Australia’s AI innovation.

Trust & ASSURE: Confidence for Adoption

Develop assurance frameworks and compliance tools to meet the highest standards of safety, performance, and reliability.
Reduce time-to-market and strengthen trust with customers and regulators.
Create “customer sandboxes” with government and enterprise to rapidly pilot and validate new AI solutions.

TALENT: Building Australia’s AI Workforce

Ensure your organisation has access to the skills and expertise needed for AI success.
Offer embedded fellowships, technical product management, and founder pathways.
Develop the next generation of AI leaders, engineers, and assurance professionals.

Our Experts

Our network brings together leading specialists across the full AI lifecycle, from research and technical implementation to governance, commercialisation, and responsible deployment.

This includes expertise in machine learning, data engineering, responsible AI, regulation, security, and applied product design, ensuring your initiatives are both innovative and enterprise ready.

The CRC also brings together multidisciplinary experts from our research partners—spanning social science, law and public policy—to work as one team on practical, industry-focused research and translation. This mix of skills ensures robust methods,real-world relevance, and solutions that can be adopted at scale.

The CRC will connect you to the experts who’ll make AI work for your organisation. We’ll also deliver a training program to build internal skills for partners and the AI services sector.

Potential Impact Scenarios Through Partnership

A SCENARIO: National AI Testbeds & Evaluations; Turning AI into Trusted Solutions.

The Challenge: Industries hesitate to deploy AI without proof it works safely and fairly.

Our Solution: Sector-specific testbeds for healthcare, logistics, energy and agriculture, combining real and synthetic data, standard metrics, and audit trails to validate AI performance.

Industry Impact Example: Hospitals cut diagnostic time by 40% using AI tools verified in our clinical testbed; delivering faster care and saving millions.

Why TDS CRC:

Builds confidence for industry and regulators.
Accelerates AI adoption and ROI.
Positions Australia as a leader in responsible AI innovation.

A scenario: Service-Layer Toolkits; Reusable AI Building Blocks for Every Industry.

The Challenge: AI adoption stalls when every solution needs custom integration for forecasting, routing, scheduling, and compliance.

Our Solution: A national CRC delivering plug-and-play APIs and reference architectures for:

Document intelligence, Forecasting and optimisation
Routing and scheduling, Safety instrumentation
Provenance and audit trails

Industry Impact Example: A logistics company integrates our routing and scheduling API into its platform in weeks, not months. Resulting in delivery times dropping by 25%, compliance reporting becomes automatic, and the business saves $20M annually.

Why TDS CRC:

Accelerates AI deployment across sectors.
Cuts integration costs and complexity.
Positions Australia as a leader in trusted, scalable AI infrastructure.

A scenario: Sovereign Enablement; Scaling AI Securely, Onshore and Compliant.

The Challenge: Australian innovators face barriers when sensitive workloads require offshore computation or fragmented compliance pathways.

Our Solution: A national transaction platform delivering:

Compliance-ready environments
Secure sandboxes for testing
Pathways to domestic compute infrastructure

So teams can scale AI without risking data sovereignty.

Industry Impact Example: An energy company using predictive maintenance AI keeps asset data onshore by leveraging the CRC’s domestic high-performance computing and Integrated audit and compliance frameworks. Resulting in faster rollout, no regulatory issues, and significant cost savings.

Why TDS CRC:

Protects critical data and IP.
Accelerates AI innovation at scale.
Positions Australia as a leader in sovereign digital capability.

Next Steps

Imagine a future where your business is fully connected to an expert AI ecosystem, accelerating innovation, overcoming regulatory barriers, and embedding AI into products, services, and business systems. Trusted adoption drives productivity, growth, and market leadership.

We invite forward-thinking partners, investors, innovators, institutions, and industry leaders, to join the TDS CRC to position Australia as a builder, not a buyer, of AI services.

We look forward to exploring this opportunity with you further.