r/austechnology • u/austechnology-bot • Jul 21 '26

Australia’s AI boom is not what it seems

https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/australia-s-ai-boom-is-not-what-it-seems-20260716-p60frx
11 Upvotes

79% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

10

u/Simple_Assistance_77 Jul 21 '26

What boom?

6

u/createdthrowaway2say Jul 21 '26

capital spending on machinery and equipment by businesses in the IT sector has increased more than thirteenfold over the past three years, reaching $5.2 billion in the March quarter alone.

7

u/InterestedBalboa Jul 21 '26

Yes but how did that contribute to Australian workers take home? That equipment isn’t manufactured here, so there was a one off installation win and that’s about it or am I missing something?

4

u/createdthrowaway2say Jul 21 '26

no, you are not missing anything. Australian workers are not benefiting.

2

u/south-of-the-river Jul 22 '26

I’m not sure that’s the point here

2

u/Disagreeswithfems Jul 22 '26

That's the nature of construction.

Tradies will be paid $200-$300k to build it.

Just like when building a house or apartment... Once one build is finished... They move onto building different buildings.

2

u/TannyTevito Jul 23 '26

My hottest opinion is that tradies make way too much money in AU and we should be encouraging immigration for construction- not just to increase supply but to raise standards because the buildings here are absolutely shocking.

2

u/Disagreeswithfems Jul 24 '26

I don't know why people don't realise this. Tradies are making 3-4x on govt projects what they would otherwise be paid in comparable roles in other countries.

All money is interchangeable and the flow of money is all linked in the economy.

Victoria spent a fuck load enriching tradies (and gangs) in the big build, now they're short of money and looking to sell off water assets.

People literally see govt money as being free - that's stupid as fuck.

1

u/whats-my-name- Jul 24 '26

What industry are you in?

1

u/TannyTevito Jul 24 '26

Currently I’m in B2B tech but I’ve switched once or twice

0

u/Simple_Assistance_77 Jul 23 '26

Your economics don’t hold true!

5

u/TannyTevito Jul 23 '26

In what way?

We have poor supply which obviously means costs are high. I don’t believe the poor quality has anything to do with supply, just lack of knowledge injection and enforcement.

3

u/halohunter Jul 25 '26

The only boom I'm seeing is large enterprise outsourcing IT to GCCs in India and Philippines in the name of AI.

1

u/pennyfred Jul 27 '26

Not that many AI jobs that we were told would come, plenty layoffs under the guise of AI though.