Overall business R&D spending climbs 18 percent to $24.4 billion.

A phone screen with AI logo, in this photo illustration. Oleksii Pydsosonnii/The Epoch Times
Australian companies have dramatically accelerated their investment in Artificial Intelligence (AI), with spending on its research and development soaring 142 percent since 2021–22.
New figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) show businesses poured $668.3 million into AI R&D in 2023–24, up from $276.3 million two years earlier.
Naziya Alvi Rahman is a Canberra-based journalist who covers political issues in Australia. She can be reached at [email protected].