The latest article in our Insight Snapshot series focuses on the NRFC’s Enabling Capabilities Priority Area and its important role in Australia’s future prosperity. Click here to read the previous article in the series.
Laying the foundations for a modern economy
The Enabling Capabilities page is consistently one of the most viewed pages on the NRFC website. While this is partly due to enthusiasm for the transformational prospects of these exciting new technologies, the majority of the traffic is from people asking the questions: what are enabling capabilities and why is the NRFC investing in them?
Enabling capabilities are the advanced technologies and materials that underpin and accelerate growth across all other industrial sectors. They are not distinct industries operating in isolation, but a layer of technological capacity that lifts the productivity, competitiveness, and innovative potential of the entire economy.
Just as roads and rail formed the essential infrastructure for the industrial economy of the 20th century, capabilities like artificial intelligence (AI), quantum technologies, and robotics are the critical infrastructure for the advanced economy of the 21st century.
What technologies comprise enabling capabilities?
Enabling capabilities encompass a range of advanced fields where Australia has the potential to build world-class, sovereign industrial capacity.
Key technologies within this Priority Area include:
- Advanced manufacturing and materials: Technologies such as additive manufacturing, advanced composite materials, semiconductors, and integrated circuit manufacture.
- Robotics and autonomous systems: Systems that perform complex tasks with minimal to no human intervention, relying on sensors, computing, and software to perceive their environment, make decisions, and act.
- Artificial intelligence: Computing technologies that simulate human intelligence to optimise processes, analyse complex data, and assist in the completion of routine tasks.
- Quantum technologies: Technology that uses the principles of quantum mechanics to exponentially improve computing power, sensing, and secure communications.
- Biotechnologies: The use of biological engineering to create new industrial products, solutions, and devices in the medical, agriculture, and chemical industries.
- Space objects or supporting products: The development of rockets, satellites, and related technologies to improve and complement positioning, sensing, timing, and communication services.
Enabling capabilities and the Australian economy: a catalyst for sovereign capability and growth
The development of enabling capabilities will be crucial to the NRFC achieving its goal of strengthening Australia’s industrial capability and economic sovereignty.
The tech sector employed 935,000 Australians as of 2023, putting the sector on track to reach the Australian Government’s goal of 1.2 million tech jobs by 2030[1]. The rapid development of new technologies will help to supercharge the sector’s economic and employment contribution, with the possibility for robotics and automation to add $1.2 trillion to the Australian economy by 2030[2]; AI to increase labour productivity by 4.3% by 2035, equating to a $116 billion increase to GDP; and the quantum computing sector to generate $5.9 billion in revenue and directly employ 19,400 people by 2045[3].
The space, positioning, timing and sensing, and advanced manufacturing sectors are also poised to grow and provide support across a range of industries. The positioning and sensing sector alone is expected to more than double to $1 trillion global market by 2033. As much as 45% of that market will be in the Asia Pacific.[4]
NRFC investment case studies
Quantum Brilliance
The NRFC has invested $13 million in Quantum Brilliance, a quantum technology company specialising in the design, development and manufacture of mass deployable diamond quantum devices.
Harrison.ai
The NRFC has invested $32 million in Harrison.ai, a global healthtech company that uses AI to review CT scans and X-rays to support the detection and diagnosis of serious medical conditions.
Myriota
The NRFC has invested $25 million in Myroita, a telecommunications company that uses satellite connectivity to allow customers to transmit data from sensors in remote locations without internet coverage.
QuintessenceLabs
The NRFC has invested $15 million in QuintessenceLabs, a cybersecurity company that offers solutions that protect against current cyber threats and quantum-enabled future attacks.
Get in touch for more information
Have you got an investment-ready proposal that fits our Enabling Capabilities Priority Area? Contact us to arrange a conversation about whether NRFC investment is right for you.
[1] Tech Council, May 2023, Tech Jobs Update, TechCouncil-Tech-Jobs-Update-May-2023_final-1.pdf(Opens in a new tab/window)
[2] McKinsey & Company, 2019, Australia’s automation opportunity: Reigniting productivity and inclusive income growth, Australia's Automation Opportunity(Opens in a new tab/window)
[3] CSIRO, Growing Australia’s Quantum Technology Industry: Updated economic modelling, https://www.csiro.au/-/media/Do-Business/Files/Futures/Quantum/2022-rep… https://www.industry.gov.au/publications/national-quantum-strategy/aust…
[4] EUSPA 2024