Australia is one step closer towards developing its first sovereign capability in the area of critical technology, with the official opening of the nation’s first-ever component-level IT infrastructure manufacturing facility.
Backed by a Defence Department innovation grant, SoftIron yesterday opened its Advanced Manufacturing Facility at Botany in Sydney.
The facility is Australia’s first advanced manufacturing hub that produces ICT componentry for SoftIron’s HyperCloud Intelligent Cloud Fabric, reportedly the world’s first complete technology for building clouds.
In a company release, SoftIron said the opening of its Advanced Manufacturing Facility positions Australia to take advantage of the AUKUS agreement, which will see an unprecedented level of information sharing between the US, the UK and Australia, and their industry partners.
By manufacturing locally, SoftIron 'all but eliminates' the risk of malicious state actors introducing firmware implants or so-called “backdoors’’ into critical information systems, according to the company.
The Australian Department of Defence has backed the Botany facility through a Sovereign Industrial Capability Grant awarded to SoftIron in 2021.
On 14 November, Assistant Minister for Defence Matt Thistlethwaite opened the facility at an event attended by federal and state government representatives, the SoftIron leadership team, and defence, business, and IT industry VIPs.
SoftIron is a venture-backed company founded in 2012. Headquartered in the UK, with offices in the U.S., Europe and Asia Pacific, SoftIron established a wholly owned subsidiary in Australia in 2020.
SoftIron Chief Operating Officer, Jason Van der Schyff said recent events had made it clear that onshoring or “friend-shoring’’ ICT supply chains was the only sure way for Australian IT providers to manage their commercial and strategic risk.
"Recent geopolitical events and the deteriorating strategic environment have exposed major weaknesses in global supply chains, particularly in the area of critical technology,” Van der Schyff said.
"Aside from exposing Australian companies to an unacceptable business risk, our reliance on foreign-manufactured componentry has increased the risk of malicious state actors introducing covert hardware or firmware during the manufacturing process.
“Unlike manufacturers who rely on opaque supply chains for their componentry, SoftIron offers total transparency of the design and manufacturing of hardware and software supply chains in its HyperCloud IT infrastructure.”