‘The Next Generation of Compute Is Driving AI,’ Technology Leader Says at NVIDIA AI Day Sydney

Editor’s note: This post is part of a blog series highlighting NVIDIA AI Days across the globe.

NVIDIA AI Days — hosted for and in different pockets of the world — are drawing in thousands of enthusiasts, developers, researchers and startups to discuss and explore the latest technologies making AI breakthroughs possible.

Sydney, Australia, was the latest stop.

Last week, over 1,000 attendees joined NVIDIA AI Day Sydney to learn about sovereign AI — including 16 breakout sessions on agentic and physical AI, robotics and AI factories. These technologies are enabling the next frontier of AI.

“It was a privilege to join NVIDIA AI Day Sydney and hear how the next generation of compute is driving AI,” said Brendan Hopper, chief information officer for technology at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. “It’s phenomenal to have NVIDIA helping build out Australia’s AI ecosystem through infrastructure, partnerships and innovation.”

The latest AI trends in Australia showcase how the technology is driving digital transformation across financial services, retail and the public sector, among other industries.

“AI Day Sydney highlighted how quantum and high-performance computing, empowered by AI, are redefining the pace and precision of scientific discovery,” said Giuseppe M. J. Barca, cofounder and head of research at QDX Technologies, and a professor at Monash University and the Australian National University.

The Australian AI ecosystem is growing:

“NVIDIA AI Day Sydney was by far the best to date technology event that XENON has attended in Australia,” said Dragan Dimitrovici, founder and CEO of XENON Systems, an Australian pioneer in high-performance computing, AI and deep learning. “It brought together key NVIDIA executives, industry leaders like Canva and Commonwealth Bank of Australia, NVIDIA Inception startups, ecosystem partners, the public sector and finance organizations to talk about how AI can help make Australia into an AI nation with the advent of AI factories.”

NVIDIA partners in Australia are advancing the nation’s role in the next industrial revolution fueled by AI.

Australia-based graphic design platform provider Canva, which is working with NVIDIA to develop generative and agentic AI solutions for its hundreds of millions of users, presented on training video foundation models and curating video data at AI Day Sydney.

“Canva is on a mission to empower everyone in the world to design anything and publish anywhere,” said Paul Thompson, senior director of engineering for generative AI at Canva. “We make extensive use of NVIDIA technologies to train, fine-tune and serve AI features to millions of users.”

NVIDIA Cloud Partners including Firmus Technologies, ResetData and SHARON AI also attended the event.

“NVIDIA AI Day Sydney proved that Australia is ready to step into its place as a global hub for AI infrastructure and innovation,” said Tim Rosenfield, co-CEO and cofounder of Firmus Technologies. “Australia’s time has come to go large in the AI era — and AI Day Sydney told that story in a way that I’ve never seen before.”

“NVIDIA AI Day was a fantastic showcase for Australian AI talent and a welcomed opportunity to develop and grow the Australian ecosystem,” said Bass Salah, co-CEO of ResetData.

“The energy, ideation and talent at NVIDIA AI Day Sydney were all remarkable,” added Andrew Leece, chief operating officer at SHARON AI. “SHARON AI is thrilled to be at the center of such an opportunity for Australian startups and innovators.”

At AI Day Sydney, NVIDIA hosted its first-ever “Australia Startup, VC and Partner Connect” event, bringing together leading startups, industry leaders and government representatives to drive the region’s AI strategy, unlock opportunities for innovation and spark cross-sector collaboration. Venture capital companies including Airtree and Breakthrough Victoria attended to connect with startups.

Presenters included quantum computing companies Diraq, PsiQuantum, Q-CTRL and Quantum Brilliance, using the NVIDIA CUDA-Q platform, as well as Heidi Health, which uses the NVIDIA Parakeet automatic speech recognition model for its medical AI scribe.

“NVIDIA AI Day was a brilliant showcase of Australian AI innovation and a great boost for the local ecosystem,” said Yu Liu, cofounder and chief technology officer at Heidi Health.

Lightning talks by startups, including NVIDIA Inception members BrainFish, Eklipse.gg and Zetaris, showcased how NVIDIA Triton Inference Server, NVIDIA NIM microservices and the NVIDIA AI Blueprint for video search and summarization accelerate the development of their AI applications in customer service, content creation, data processing and more.

Plus, over 15 technical talks and hands-on workshops from the NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute were offered, including on building AI agents with retrieval-augmented generation capabilities and using the NVIDIA Cosmos world foundation model platform for physical AI.

Australia’s AI future lies where the nation’s long heritage and expertise in high-performance computing, visual effects and animation intersect with the vibrant, emerging quantum and robotics industries, said NVIDIA Country Manager for Australia and New Zealand Enterprise Sudarshan Ramachandran at the event. This is poised to drive discovery and sustainability through advanced simulation and AI technologies.

“Through strong collaboration, world-class infrastructure and innovation partnerships, we’re building a thriving ecosystem that positions Australia as a global leader in AI and economic advancement,” Ramachandran said.

Next up: Join NVIDIA at GTC Washington, D.C., running Oct. 27-29 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.

Explore more content from AI Days around the globe.