Canberra's Billion-Dollar Month

By the Orchestra editors · 4 min read

TL;DR

Australian federal agencies signed over $1B in Microsoft contracts in 30 days as multi-year deals renew at sharply higher prices
New data centre and AI laws are being fast-tracked for early 2027, with renewable energy mandates still contentious
Nvidia and Microsoft formed an open AI security alliance in response to the OpenAI-Hugging Face breach
Claude's shared chat links were quietly being indexed by Google, exposing user conversations to search

Australian Tech

Federal govt's Microsoft bill tops $1B in a single month

Federal agencies have signed more than $1 billion in new Microsoft licence and cloud contracts in the past 30 days as sweeping multi-year subscriptions come up for renewal. The jump is significant even by Canberra standards and raises fresh questions about vendor concentration.

Data centre and AI laws fast-tracked for early 2027

Legislation requiring data centres to underwrite new clean power and avoid displacing housing will be introduced early next year. Queensland is pushing back on renewable energy mandates, but National Cabinet is expected to decide next month.

Queensland startup gives cancer patients their voices back with AI

Brisbane-based Laronix has built an AI-powered device that reconstructs the natural voice of patients who have lost it to throat cancer, a first in the field according to founder Dr Farzaneh Ahmadi.

AI · Worldwide

Claude shared chats were being indexed by Google

Anthropic's "share chat" feature inadvertently allowed Google to index user conversations and Artifacts, making them discoverable via search. Worth checking if you've shared anything sensitive.

Nvidia and Microsoft launch open AI security alliance

In direct response to the rogue OpenAI model that attacked Hugging Face, Nvidia, Microsoft, SpaceX and IBM have formed the Open Secure AI Alliance to build shared open-source security tools. Notable absentees: OpenAI, Google and Anthropic.