The Australia–India technology relationship is moving beyond trade and education into a more strategic phase focused on cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and quantum technologies. Deakin University researchers have secured multiple competitive grants under the Australia–India Cyber and Critical Technology Partnership (AICCTP), funding collaborations with Indian institutions on post-quantum cryptography, digital public infrastructure, AI adoption and critical energy security. The projects position universities as an important layer of the two countries’ growing technology and resilience agenda across the Indo-Pacific.
Deakin Grants Put AI, Quantum Security and Cyber Resilience on the Australia–India Agenda
The next generation of Australia–India technology cooperation may be shaped as much by research laboratories as by commercial technology companies.
Deakin University has secured funding for several collaborative projects addressing emerging cyber and critical technology challenges, bringing together researchers from Australia, India and the wider South Asian region.
The awards come through the Australia–India Cyber and Critical Technology Partnership, established in 2020 to support cooperation among Australian and Indian research institutions, governments, industry and civil society.
For Deakin, the latest funding builds on work by its Cyber Research and Innovation Hub and Applied Artificial Intelligence Initiative. The projects span four areas that are becoming increasingly important to governments and enterprises: quantum-safe security, digital public infrastructure, AI-enabled critical infrastructure protection and responsible AI adoption.
The significance goes beyond individual research projects. Australia and India are increasingly treating cyber resilience and critical technologies as strategic capabilities, particularly as both countries navigate geopolitical uncertainty, digital infrastructure dependence and the emergence of more capable AI systems.
Post-Quantum Cryptography Moves From Research to Migration Planning
One of Deakin’s projects, Post-Quantum Cryptography Migration in the Indo-Pacific, is being led by Deakin in partnership with IIT Madras.
The focus is timely. Quantum computers capable of breaking widely used public-key cryptography are not yet available at the scale required for such attacks, but organizations are already being encouraged to prepare for the transition to quantum-resistant cryptographic standards.
The reason is a problem known as “harvest now, decrypt later.” Adversaries can potentially collect encrypted information today and attempt to decrypt it once sufficiently capable quantum computing becomes available.
For governments, financial institutions, telecommunications companies and other organizations holding sensitive information for long periods, cryptographic migration can take years. Systems need to be inventoried, dependencies mapped, algorithms evaluated and replacement technologies tested.
That makes post-quantum cryptography less of a theoretical research topic and more of an infrastructure migration challenge.
The Deakin–IIT Madras collaboration could therefore contribute to a broader regional question: how Indo-Pacific economies can transition critical digital infrastructure toward quantum-resistant security without disrupting existing systems.
Digital Public Infrastructure Gets a Quantum-Security Dimension
A second project, Quantum-safe Digital Public Infrastructure, is led by Deakin with Symbiosis International University and Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT).
Digital public infrastructure has become a major technology policy theme in India, particularly around digital identity, payments and public-service delivery. The country’s India Stack has demonstrated how interoperable digital infrastructure can support services at enormous scale.
But scale also increases the consequences of a security failure.
Adding quantum-safe security considerations to digital public infrastructure research suggests a longer-term approach: critical digital systems need to remain resilient as the underlying threat environment changes.
The work also highlights an important distinction between cybersecurity and technological resilience. Security controls designed for today’s threats may not be sufficient for tomorrow’s computing environment, meaning governments and infrastructure operators increasingly need to plan across technology cycles rather than individual product lifetimes.
AI and Blockchain Move Into Critical Energy Security
Another funded project addresses critical energy supply chains, combining AI and blockchain.
The project is led by La Trobe University in collaboration with Deakin and IIT Kanpur.
Energy infrastructure has become increasingly digital, connecting operational technology with enterprise networks, cloud platforms, sensors and supply-chain systems. That connectivity can create new opportunities for predictive analytics and automation, but it can also introduce additional attack surfaces.
AI can help identify anomalies, forecast equipment failures and analyze complex operational data. Blockchain technologies, meanwhile, can potentially provide tamper-evident records across multi-party supply chains.
Neither technology is a universal security solution. Their value depends on implementation, data quality, governance and integration with existing operational systems.
Still, combining AI and distributed-ledger technologies reflects a broader industry movement toward protecting infrastructure through a mix of analytics, identity, traceability and automated monitoring.
Researchers Also Tackle the AI Adoption Problem
A fourth project focuses on barriers to safe, standards-based AI adoption.
Led by Swinburne University of Technology, the initiative includes Deakin, IIT Palakkad, River Venture Studio in Singapore and Kumaraguru College of Technology.
That focus is particularly relevant as organizations move from generative AI experiments toward production deployments.
The technical capabilities of AI systems are advancing rapidly, but enterprises still face questions around governance, standards, security, privacy, accountability and workforce readiness. Standards-based approaches can help organizations establish common expectations for developing and deploying AI rather than relying entirely on vendor-specific controls.
The project consequently addresses a problem facing both Australia and India: how to capture the economic benefits of AI while creating sufficient safeguards for high-impact applications.
Australia–India Technology Cooperation Is Becoming More Strategic
The projects arrive within a broader expansion of bilateral technology and research ties.
Deakin has maintained a presence in India since 1994 and has developed relationships across government, industry and academia. The university’s Deakin SME Research Centre also secured an A$340,000 Australian Government Maitri Grant for a programme examining how Australian SMEs can engage with India’s innovation ecosystem and build innovation centres.
That matters because research partnerships can create pathways beyond individual grants. Universities can become connectors between government priorities, industry requirements, emerging technologies and technical talent.
For Australia, India provides access to a large research and technology ecosystem and a rapidly expanding digital economy. For India, partnerships with Australian institutions can strengthen international research networks and provide additional routes for technology commercialization and talent exchange.
The critical-technology focus makes those relationships strategically significant.
AI, quantum computing and cybersecurity increasingly overlap. AI systems depend on secure data and infrastructure. Quantum computing threatens some existing cryptographic assumptions while potentially enabling new computational capabilities. Critical infrastructure requires all three disciplines to work together.
Deakin’s projects reflect that convergence.
Why the Grants Matter for Enterprise Technology
For businesses, the practical impact is likely to emerge over a longer timeline than the grant announcements themselves.
Research into post-quantum migration could eventually inform how enterprises protect long-lived sensitive data. AI safety and standards research could help organizations develop more consistent governance frameworks. Work on energy supply chains could produce new approaches to monitoring and securing critical infrastructure.
The broader signal is perhaps more important: cybersecurity, AI and quantum technologies are increasingly being treated as interconnected infrastructure challenges rather than separate technology categories.
Professor Robin Doss, Director of the Deakin Cyber Research and Innovation Hub, described the projects as part of a shared effort to develop secure and resilient technologies for Australia, India and the wider Indo-Pacific.
That regional framing is increasingly relevant.
As governments and enterprises invest in AI and digital infrastructure, the question is no longer simply who can develop the most advanced technology. It is also who can make those technologies secure, interoperable and resilient enough to operate at national and enterprise scale.
Australia–India research partnerships such as these will be one part of that equation.
Market Landscape
The emerging critical-technology ecosystem spans several interconnected markets:
- AI and machine learning: Organizations are moving toward production AI while facing governance, security and standards challenges.
- Post-quantum cryptography: Governments and enterprises are beginning migration planning ahead of future cryptographically relevant quantum computers.
- Digital public infrastructure: India provides a major example of nationally scaled digital identity, payments and public-service infrastructure.
- Critical infrastructure security: Energy, telecommunications and other infrastructure operators increasingly combine IT, operational technology, AI and connected systems.
- International research collaboration: Universities are becoming strategic channels for technology development, talent mobility and commercialization between allied technology ecosystems.
For enterprise technology leaders, the common theme is resilience. AI adoption, quantum readiness and cybersecurity increasingly need to be planned together rather than as isolated technology programmes.
Top Insights
- Deakin researchers secured AICCTP grants covering post-quantum cryptography, digital infrastructure, AI governance and critical energy supply-chain security.
- Deakin and IIT Madras will investigate quantum-safe migration, addressing a growing need to protect long-lived sensitive data from future quantum threats.
- AI and blockchain research targeting energy supply chains could strengthen monitoring, traceability and resilience across increasingly connected critical infrastructure.
- The Australia–India projects demonstrate how universities are becoming strategic partners in developing secure technologies and technical capabilities across the Indo-Pacific.
- AI standards and governance research could help enterprises move from experimental deployments toward safer, more accountable production AI systems.
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