Minister Dawson Announces $10 Million AI Investment Fund And Public Sector Centre Of Excellence

The Western Australian government will set up a $10 million AI Investment Fund and a Public Sector AI Centre of Excellence, the Cook Government announced earlier today, in a move designed to push state agencies toward faster adoption of artificial intelligence.

The fund is structured to attract industry and university partners to pilot and scale projects that demonstrate measurable gains in productivity or service delivery. Rather than leaving each agency to source its own tools, the government will run a centralised purchasing mechanism to give departments ready access to established AI businesses. Good news for startups or scale-ups wanting to sell into the WA public sector.

The Centre of Excellence has been described as the operational core of the plan. It will house an AI uplift team that provides specialist expertise to help agencies build and deploy solutions that can be reused across the sector, alongside a central policy and governance team responsible for ensuring that deployment is safe and accountable. It’s one coordinated approach to cut duplication and make sure money spent on AI produces something agencies across whole of government benefit from..

“The advancement of AI presents significant opportunities to enhance service delivery across government functions,” Science and Innovation Minister Stephen Dawson said.

“By establishing an AI Centre of Excellence and an investment fund, we will ensure Western Australia remains at the forefront of technological innovation and that our public sector is equipped with the resources necessary to meet evolving needs.”

For a number of years, StartupWA has been advocating for a smarter way of connecting innovative startups with Government problems that need solving. That advocacy started with former StartupWA Chair, Tom Goerke, and has continued through successive boards.

The suggested model was a variation of the CivTech Scotland model, which has been used and tested by many governments around the world. On the surface, this appears to follow a similar approach and should make it much easier for startups to win government procurement contracts.