Tech News: 5 Things to Know in Australia Today

Good morning. Let’s just get right into the tech news, shall we?

1. The Aussie quantum industry prepares for grants

Kicking things off, itNews is reporting that the Australian government has earmarked early 2024 for its quantum computing grants. The government devoted $101 million in the May federal budget to quantum computing and AI, with the CSIRO expecting that the industry could be worth as much as $6.1 billion and employ 19,000 Australians by 2045. Two separate grant programs are expected to launch in 2024.

2. Toyota teases its battery tech

CNET is reporting that Toyota’s new battery will be able to travel up to 1,207km, while only needing 10 minutes to recharge. The carmaker expects to produce the battery in cars by 2028, with the expectation that these batteries would soon be followed by a version capable of travelling 1,480km. Until then, Toyota claims that it will release a battery capable of 997km of travel by 2026. The company’s development of electric vehicles has been slow compared to other major automakers, but a battery with this capability would be a gigantic step forward for the technology.

3. The CEFC devotes $20 million to rideshare EVs

Staying on electric vehicles, the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) has announced $20 million in concessional financing to boost the number of electric vehicles being used by rideshare companies in Australia like Uber. The money will go towards car leasing company Splend, the biggest rideshare vehicle subscription provider in Australia, and it will allow the company to double its electric vehicle fleet. “Rideshare vehicles cover five to six times the distance of an average privately-owned car,” the Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen said. “This is about making cleaner, cheaper to run more accessible for rideshare workers.”

4. Twitter is getting evicted from one of its offices

Could we go a day without writing about Twitter? The latest comes from TechCrunch, which is reporting that the bird app is being evicted from its Boulder, Colorado office. Twitter reportedly owes three months’ rent to the landlord of the office, and a judge has signed off on evicting the tech giant. As many as 300 employees were expected to have once worked at the Boulder office, but since Twitter’s massive layoffs, TechCrunch expects it to be probably less than half of that now.

Twitter is getting evicted from its Colorado office over unpaid rent https://t.co/XIjedm0rjz pic.twitter.com/qcJZyijbcM

— Engadget (@engadget) June 14, 2023

5. The European Union moves a step closer to AI regulation

The European Union is one step closer to regulating artificial intelligence with a first-of-its-kind AI Act, which sets out to ban any AI applications that pose a risk to the public at large. The act places AI in one of three categories identifying it as an unacceptable risk, a high-risk application, or largely left unregulated. The AI Act site clarifies that under the first unacceptable risk category, it will ban applications that put the government at risk, such as “government-run social scoring of the type used in China”. Meanwhile, if an AI application is placed in the high-risk category, the act specifies that these applications, like CV-scanning tools, will go under review to ensure they meet legal requirements.