Australian Government partners with Amazon Web Services

The Australian Government will invest at least $2 billion over the next decade to bolster Australia’s cyber capabilities with the announcement of a strategic partnership between Defence’s Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) and Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Australia to deliver a Top Secret (TS) Cloud for the Australian Government.

This landmark partnership will see AWS establish a sovereign TS Cloud in Australia to deliver resilient information, communication and technology (ICT) services for the Australian Government, generating up to 2,000 local Australian jobs.

AWS is the world’s most widely adopted cloud computing service with a longstanding presence in Australia and specialist expertise in delivering classified cloud services that provide world-class security, reliability and resilience, says Defence.

“The Top Secret Cloud with Amazon Web Services in Australia will provide a state-of-the-art collaborative space for our intelligence and defence community to store and access top secret data,” says Rachel Noble, Director-General of ASD. “This will transform how we work together as agencies and partners. For ASD, this capability is a vital part of our REDSPICE program which is lifting our intelligence and offensive and defensive cyber capabilities.”

The TS Cloud will be purpose-built for Australia’s Defence and National Intelligence Community agencies to securely host sensitive information. It will improve their ability to securely share and analyse highly classified data at speed and at scale, and provides opportunities to harness leading technologies including artificial intelligence and machine learning.

The TS Cloud will bolster the resilience of Defence’s communications networks and is a critical enabling capability in supporting the ADF’s military operations, and will also support greater interoperability and deeper collaboration with the United States, Defence says.