Australia's national science agency, CSIRO, has released a report exploring Australia's sovereign capability to build foundation models, the technology underpinning generative artificial intelligence (AI).

Foundation models are trained on vast amounts of data and can perform complex and generalised tasks, powering AI products such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Copilot, and Google’s Gemini.

At least 125 foundation models have been developed worldwide, with the majority coming from the United States (73%), China (15%), and Europe. Most are created by private-sector technology corporations.

The report provides an overview of the global foundation model landscape, outlining opportunities to minimise risks and maximise their benefit for Australians. Lead author of the report, Dr Stefan Hajkowicz, believes that foundation models have the potential to improve a broad spectrum of Australian industries and services.

"We’ve all been impressed by the way these models can write a wedding speech or a poem. But the speed, power, and colossal scale of the data analysis they can achieve has the potential to help us solve our greatest challenges, boost productivity and save lives," said Dr Hajkowicz. "A foundation model for healthcare for example could help us untangle complex, hidden relationships in patients’ health records, helping us reduce the 140,000+ medical misdiagnoses in Australia each year due to human error."

The report also highlights the risks associated with relying on foreign models. Professor Elanor Huntington, CSIRO’s Digital, National Facilities & Collections Executive Director, emphasised the need for an integrated approach to building Australia’s sovereign capability in this new class of infrastructure.

"While there are significant benefits to fine-tuning existing models in terms of cost and the speed of innovation, using foreign models poses security and reliability risks. It may also result in tools that aren’t culturally appropriate in an Australian context, or that don’t realise the benefits for our workers that we want to see."

The report suggests that opportunities for Australia to maximise the positive impact of foundation models could include developing public sector AI models, democratising access to high-performance computing, sharing datasets, promoting skills uplift, and fostering international collaborations.

"Australia needs to be alert to the risks and opportunities presented by this game-changing technology, and we hope this report will help make foundation models more accessible, start conversations and inspire further growth in our nation’s foundation model capabilities," said Huntington.