South Australian premier inks deal with OpenAI on US trip

While touring the US, South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas visited OpenAI’s headquarters in San Francisco where he signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with its co-founder and president Greg Brockman.

OpenAI is the developer of ChatGPT, the world’s most popular generative AI chatbot.

It is believed to be the first time an Australian state or territory government has inked an MoU with a major AI company.

The agreement will provide opportunities to develop AI skills, accelerate local research and innovation, attract global investment and spread the benefits of AI across South Australia, Malinauskas said.

“We want to lead with ambition and care,” he said in a statement on Sunday.

“Any initiative taken forward will be human-led and subject to the legal, privacy, security and procurement safeguards South Australians expect.”

The federal government in April announced an MoU with Anthropic, creator of the Claude AI assistant.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has since flagged plans to introduce legal requirements governing AI use and data centres.

He will convene a meeting of the nation’s leaders later in August to discuss data centres and reach agreement on uniform standards.

Six states have agreed to the framework but Queensland and the Northern Territory are holding out.

Malinauskas has been rubbing shoulders with US lawmakers, defence officials and tech leaders during a trade and investment mission, visiting New York, Washington DC, Maryland, Virginia and California so far.

The premier, who got the ball rolling on Australia’s move to restrict children younger than 16 from accessing social media, spoke about the ban during a meeting with Apple’s outgoing chief executive Tim Cook.

“To its great credit, Apple is rolling out stronger parental controls on its devices soon, giving parents greater control over how their children use devices such as iPhones and iPads,” Malinauskas wrote in a post on social media.

“Mr Cook has made clear that these changes have been inspired in part by the Australian social media age limit.

“We also had an important discussion about artificial intelligence and what the future of the technology could mean for our economy and society.”

Malinauskas is expected to return to Australia on Friday.