Anna-Maria Arabia spoke with Saskia Mabin on ABC Radio Canberra Mornings on 14 August 2025.
TOPICS: Supercomputing, investment in R&D, CSIRO job cuts, ACT Productivity roundtable.
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Saskia Mabin:
Did you know that Australian scientists pioneered ultrasound technology? Professor Fiona Woods, a life saving spray on skin. These are all advances in research and development that we use and benefit from in our everyday life. The Academy of Science says for most countries, science and technology is considered an indispensable strategic national asset, but not in Australia.
Anna-Maria Arabia is the chief executive of the Australian Academy of Science; welcome to the program. Thank you for being here.
Anna-Maria Arabia:
Lovely to be with you, Saskia.
Saskia Mabin:
Now, you were at the ACT Productivity Roundtable yesterday afternoon, ahead of next week's Economic Round Table, the Federal one. What did you speak about and what was important for you to convey in that meeting?
Anna-Maria Arabia:
Look, it was a terrific, constructive and very inclusive gathering.
We put forward two proposals to that meeting, in part because of their ability to boost the national interests, but also because they have relevance in the ACT.
One of them is a proposal that we use the ACT or that it be considered as a national hub for high-performance computing. What that means is supercomputing, and these are those extraordinary computers that don't just store data, they actually analyse data and give us information that is critical to innovation and to research and development.
Your listeners might know that there is a fantastic supercomputer at the ANU at the National Computational Infrastructure there, but it's reaching its end-of-life and it's certainly not of a capacity that we need to meet all of our future needs.
So when we think about using AI and the data it generates and uses, quantum computing and wonderful startups in the ACT, like quantum brilliance, weather forecasting and modelling.
There's a range of uses for supercomputers, and we really do need to plan forward to have the capacity we need. So the ACT could be such an extraordinary hub for this national infrastructure.
Why? We've got fantastic universities and VET sectors, there's UT, CIT. We have low our energy sources almost 100% renewable, and we know in supercomputing they're quite energy intensive, so that's really important. There's connectedness to the heart of government. There are many, many attributes in the ACT that would enable it to be a fantastic hub.
So we put forward that possibility. It also would attract industry investments. So, supercomputing at the moment in Australia is used mostly by researchers, but overseas, in Germany for two months a year, their supercomputers are used by industry, by the automotive industry. So there's a real opportunity for a public-private partnership that would grow jobs, that would boost productivity, and really set us up for the future, so that we can remain innovative and use R&D as a source of economic growth.
Saskia Mabin:
And further, Katy Gallagher did mention that earlier in the program when we spoke that this was something the government was considering, looking at how they could give startups a better go and better access to capital. How much funding, you know, increase in funding for what we currently get through research and development, would you be asking for?
Anna-Maria Arabia:
So the supercomputing capability is not an inexpensive one, and that is why I think it lends itself to a public-private partnership. We often in research land talk about supercomputing as being the road of this century. So when you think about roads, toll roads, they often attract private investment, that could be superannuation investment, or other forms of private investment, and they're tolled, and therefore they have users and they become a very viable model for public-private partnerships.
Supercomputers are not dissimilar, so they have private and public users. So there is a possibility, I think, to explore what sort of investment models might be possible. The computer power we need to set us up for the future is around a $2 billion investment over 10 years. But again, as a joint venture and one that is profitable, it could really be an extraordinary national asset for Australia and potentially service our region as well. There is a different argument around the broader boost in R&D expenditure in Australia. That's separate investment.
Saskia Mabin:
My guest is Anna-Maria Arabia, who's the chief executive of the Australian Academy of Science. This listener says, Australian R&D, we're great at medical research, but sell it out to foreign companies who get billions. Is that a concern of yours, Anna-Maria?
Anna-Maria Arabia:
It is. Unfortunately, with monotonous regularity, we produce extraordinarily high-quality research. We haven't invested enough in the translation of that research to see it to commercial impact here. That research gets picked up abroad, developed, and then we buy it back. We need to stop this trend. Australia can and should be benefitting from the commercial outcomes of the extraordinarily high-quality research that we undertake, and there are settings that could be adjusted to enable that.
Saskia Mabin:
While we're here, I wonder if I could ask you about an item that's running in our news this morning about the CSIRO. The head of the CSIRO has said that some areas of research will need to be cut and the union representing staff there said that there will be 450 jobs cut this financial year. This sounds concerning to me, Anna-Maria. Is this something that is on your radar right now?
Anna-Maria Arabia:
It is, both from a CSIRO perspective, but also from a broader R&D expenditure perspective. So, you know, we're at a bit of a crossroads in Australia and our investment in R&D in Australia is nearing the bottom of the OECD.
In five years' time, we will be at the bottom of the OECD, unfortunately. And what is required is investment in R&D from government, higher education and business. CSIRO is not exempt to that, so unfortunately, unless we make broader changes to address that problem, we'll continue to see cuts both at CSIRO and other research agencies.
One of the proposals to the Academy of Science has put forward as part of the productivity roundtable is to look at incentivising investment in R&D by large businesses. Why have we chosen that? When we look at the data, under investment by business in R&D, is now at - Australians have, Australian businesses have under invested in R&D to the extent of $322.5 billion dollars compared to the OECD. It is a major gap and one that needs to be filled. And we really are at a crossroads where we are needing to address this quite urgently, because the current decline in overall R&D spending can't continue.
We've proposed a solution to that, and that is to incentivise R&D investment through the application of an R&D levy. We've had some independent economic analysis done, and through that levy, it would generate research income that would feed back into that R&D loop. You can't have D without R, and those companies that do invest in R&D would be rewarded.
They would have their levy either discounted, or potentially down to zero. So those that do well, the high R&D intensive companies would not feel the burden of the R&D levy, but those who were not contributing would either pay the levy or invest in R&D. So it's a bit of an incentive to boost R&D, and we feel that the under-investment at the moment is now quite intolerable. We need to quite boldly address this investment gap.
Saskia Mabin:
Anna-Maria Arabia, thank you so much for your time this morning.
Anna-Maria Arabia:
It's a pleasure to be here.
Saskia Mabin:
There's the chief executive of the Australian Academy of Science there.
