Washington’s launch of the Genesis Mission has just redrawn the global technological map, and Australia needs to pay attention. The issue is no longer about narrow defence or intelligence capabilities; it’s about who owns the computing power, energy, materials and scientific platforms that’ll define economic sovereignty for the next 50 years. The opportunity is clear: align the National AI Plan with this emerging US architecture and fast-track a Northern Territory computing zone that can anchor Australia’s digital future.
The Genesis Mission, established by a 24 November executive order, represents a profound shift in how the United States intends to prosecute technological competition with China. This is a national AI-for-science program designed to integrate the 17 US national laboratories, their supercomputing clusters, vast scientific datasets and robotic laboratories into a single closed-loop experimentation platform. Its ambition is enormous: to double the productivity and impact of US federal research and development within a decade by applying AI agents, simulation models and domain-specific foundation models across critical materials, quantum, fusion, semiconductors, grid optimisation, biotechnology and defence science.
This is Washington fusing science, energy and national security into a single strategic engine.
Australia’s National AI Plan, released alongside the Future Made in Australia agenda, reflects different assumptions. It’s broad, whole-of-economy and socially oriented. Its focus is on digital inclusion, workforce capability, smart infrastructure, sovereign public-sector AI capability and a coordinated national approach to AI-enabled productivity. It highlights that Australia attracted $10 billion in data-centre investment in 2024, ranking second globally, and that more than $100 billion in new data-centre projects have been announced. Data-centre electricity consumption, about 4 terawatt-hours in 2024, is expected to triple by 2030. Australia’s AI sector—1,500 firms and $700 million in private investment in 2024—is positioned as a central economic opportunity.
Both plans are credible, but they’re playing on different levels of the board. And China’s strategy adds another dimension that Australia can no longer afford to overlook.
Over the past five years, China has accelerated a state-directed program to integrate high-performance computing, AI foundation models and scientific research into a vertically unified innovation system. Beijing’s ‘AI for Science’ initiatives, overseen by the Ministry of Science and Technology and several leading laboratories, aim to modernise materials discovery, accelerate pharmaceutical development, optimise grid operations, and support dual-use advanced manufacturing. China already hosts some of the world’s largest AI training clusters and exascale-class supercomputers and is funnelling significant investment through national champions in semiconductors, quantum, energy systems and robotics. Where the US is now moving through the Genesis Mission to consolidate and accelerate these capabilities, China has spent a decade building them.
This matters for Australia because both major powers are now explicitly aligning AI, computing, energy, scientific research and industrial capability. Economic competitiveness and national security are no longer distinct priorities. They’re mutually reinforcing.
Genesis will significantly increase global demand for secure, energy-rich, low-latency computing regions. US analysis already points to growing tensions between AI workloads and US grid capacity and to the strategic need for trusted, low-carbon, energy-rich jurisdictions that can host sensitive scientific computing power. China is also aggressively hunting for offshore compute access—directly and indirectly—through partnerships, cloud infrastructure, minerals engagement and energy-linked technology investments.
In this emerging environment, geography, energy and trust become strategic assets. That is where the Northern Territory enters the story.
The Beetaloo Basin and Barkly region offer what both Genesis-aligned partners and like-minded technology investors will increasingly seek: firming gas to stabilise multi-gigawatt computing capacity; world-class solar potential, including through the emerging Powell Creek SunCable precinct; land availability at scale; and proximity to Darwin’s subsea cable infrastructure linking directly to Asia, the South Pacific and the US. This is matched by regulatory and security alignment with the US and Japan, including trusted jurisdictions and export-control compliance that are essential for AI-for-science workloads.
These attributes aren’t simply regional development advantages; they’re the building blocks of sovereign capability in the AI century.
The Genesis guidance documents emphasise that regions with firm energy, large-scale renewables, modern transmission, land flexibility and strong security alignment will be advantaged. They highlight that Genesis strengthens the investment case for trusted Indo-Pacific jurisdictions by enabling them to host AI-heavy energy and computing systems. What the US is signalling—albeit indirectly—is that the computing geography of allies matters. The Northern Territory uniquely sits at the intersection of energy abundance, strategic geography and allied digital connectivity.
This creates a moment for Australia to reposition Beetaloo and Barkly as the Indo-Pacific’s Genesis-aligned computing and energy precinct: a sovereign location where AI-accelerated science, clean energy, critical minerals and defence-relevant capabilities converge.
Australia now needs to act decisively.
First, declare a national computing-infrastructure mission, aligned with but not dependent on the US Genesis Mission. This should include AI-accelerated science, energy modelling, materials discovery and defence-relevant systems.
Second, designate the Beetaloo and Barkly region as a national strategic computing zone, integrating gas, solar, storage, transmission and fibre planning within a unified national framework.
Third, establish a trilateral AI-Energy-Minerals partnership between Australia, the US and Japan, linking NT energy and computing capability with allied industrial strategies and scientific research.
Fourth, treat computing as critical infrastructure. That means streamlined approvals, integrated power planning and incentives tailored for strategic investors rather than generic data-centre proponents.
The global contest for AI-enabled scientific and industrial power is accelerating. China has already built its architecture. The US has fired the starting pistol with Genesis. Australia has the policy tools. The Northern Territory has the energy, land and digital geography.