Anthropic seals new multi-billion dollar deal with Albanese government to track, advance use of AI

AI giant Anthropic has sealed a new multi-billion dollar deal with the Albanese government to track and advance the use of artificial intelligence in Australia.

Anthropic co-founder Dario Amodei met with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Canberra on Wednesday morning to formalise the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).

The tech giant — which is behind the Claude AI platform — will collaborate on workforce AI education and training and work with Australia’s AI Safety Institute to assess national risks and the university sector on research projects.

Institutions set to partner with Claude to support research and accelerate scientific progress include Australian National University, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, and Curtin University.

Curtin’s Institute for Data Science will use it to aid research projects across health sciences, the humanities, business, law, science, and engineering.

Murdoch Children’s Research Institute will use it for a stem cell medicine program relating to childhood heart disease.

The partnership could also boost adoption of AI by public servants with the MoU citing efforts to find new opportunities for collaboration with the Australian Public Service.

The agreement with Australia comes after similar agreements with AI safety institutes in the US, UK, and Japan.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said on Wednesday the partnership was in the national interest and was part of Australia’s National AI Plan. He and other ministers will also meet with the tech boss during his trip Down Under.

“The work that we do on AI — including the agreements that we struck with individual companies and our national AI plan more broadly — is about maximising the economic benefits of AI and minimising the risks to people and communities,” he said.

“I suspect the discussion that I have with the head of Anthropic towards the end of a busy day will be all about the Australian opportunity, making sure that we maximise that opportunity and minimise the risks.”

The MoU comes after Albanese Government last week announced new expectations for AI investment in the nation, revealing it would only prioritise proposals for data centres and “AI factories” which use clean energy, hire Australians, and don’t adversely impact the communities they are built in.

While the framework is not law, the government warned it sets out exactly how it will approach major data centre proposals.

Dr Chalmers on Wednesday said that those new strict expectations were factored into the agreement with Anthropic, which internationally promotes itself as a safer, ethical choice compared to AI competitors.

“Obviously, we want to make sure that this massive interest in data centre investment in our country comes with it obligations, including natural resource management, water, obviously, energy, a whole range of relevant factors,” he said.

“I wanted to pay tribute to Andrew Charlton and Tim Ayres and other colleagues who work very hard on these issues.”