Digital Australia needs sovereign secure foundations

Unprecedented disruption has become a defining feature of the 2020s. Is Australia ready to embrace the opportunity? And are our sovereign secure foundations where they need to be?

The last twelve months reveal incredible technologies emerging or evolving to enable us to embark on a transformative journey, one that holds the promise of reshaping industries, revolutionising economies, and modernising government and government services including Augmented Reality, Quantum, Edge, IoT, blockchain and, of course, artificial intelligence. The potential for digital transformation is vast and it’s arriving quickly.

The biggest challenge today will be to make sure we are ready to unlock the value of a transformed future. In such a dynamic and competitive market, with the Australian public eager to engage in these new technologies, it is important not to be left behind.

We must have the right foundations in place for businesses and government to adopt these new technologies. How we collaborate, invest and ensure the correct balance between innovation and security will be key. At Telstra, we believe that government partnerships can play an important role in preparing for the Industry 4.0 era. This next wave of digitalisation, automation and data-driven technologies offer a powerful path forward for sovereign industrial capabilities.

A sovereign secure digital fabric for our nation is about confidence in our future, delivering trusted, resilient connectivity for our citizens, businesses, governments and infrastructure. We know cyber risk is growing almost exponentially in the current geopolitical climate. Offering platforms and networks that give Australian business and government users deep confidence is more important than ever.

Telstra has a wide and growing range of initiatives to meet Australia’s sovereign needs. At the network level for all customers, we have the Cleaner Pipes initiative to reduce malicious activity and the Scam Indicator Tool built in partnership with a leading Australian bank to help reduce fraud in real-time.

For government users, Telstra recently launched the TasGRN, one of the world’s most capable and secure radio networks to serve all Tasmania’s emergency services on a single unified solution. We are also working to co-design major upgrades to train network efficiency, and we are providing IoT solutions for smarter management of water services for better proactive maintenance. And in WA we are working with the City of Joondalup to roll out full IoT coverage for the city’s services – today its bins talk to each other and tell garbage collectors when they’re full.

All these examples demand a reliable network integration to succeed. But they are also all in the realm of critical public infrastructure that must be secured against interference from cyber threats. Sovereignty must be high on the priority list for delivering confidence that these risks are managed appropriately.

Telstra has also introduced capabilities like our Sovereign SecureEdge technology and our Security Operations Centre platforms, tailored to the needs of government and critical industry. Ensuring Australian industry has the highest levels of protection, delivered on Australian technology, is about building foundations we can trust through whatever lies ahead. Upon this bedrock, businesses can build a digital future where these emerging technologies lead to a new cycle of innovation that will drive growth, prosperity and inclusivity.

Whether you’re reinventing services with 5G, empowering a hybrid workforce, digitising business or automating a factory, we deliver it across Telstra’s flexible, modern IT foundation that adapts and scales to suit your business plan. With every layer of connectivity built upon Australian-owned and Australian-run foundations.