Australia’s digital technology clusters have been mapped and analysed on a national scale for the first time as part of a report by Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, and the Tech Council of Australia.
“The geography of Australia’s digital industries”, explores how the geographical concentration of innovation – like Silicon Valley in California – boosts growth and productivity.
The report brings together rich data from across the nation for the first time to map and describe the range of digital technology clusters currently developing.
Think Silicon Valley in California, Silicon Fen in Cambridge and Tech Central in Sydney. These and other such places are examples of industry clusters. Decades of research in economic geography has shown that clusters matter. Firms inside clusters tend to grow faster, innovate more, compete and build wealth globally at the national scale.
Clusters aren’t everything, but they’re a critical component of effective industry growth and development strategy. In this report we have – for the first time – mapped Australia’s digital technology industry clusters at the national scale.
We hope this information will help decision makers in industry, community and government as they develop our digital technology industries.
The report identifies 96 digital technology industry clusters in Australian cities and regions. These include:
- 4 “super-clusters” which are Australia’s largest and most significant agglomerations of digital companies and workers,
- 60 greater capital city clusters (SA2 Regions) where there are large and highly concentrated
workforces with high levels of specialisation in diverse fields and which often contain large companies, and - 36 regional niche clusters (SA2 Regions) which include significant digital workforces which are
specialised in one, sometimes two, areas of digital technology expertise
The report concludes with a statement of purpose that “we hope that the data presented in this report helps industry, government and community plan for the development of Australia’s digital industry clusters. Better data can help decision makers identify what to do and where to achieve economic, social and environmental outcomes”.
Will digital and tech industries follow the concentration of activity and wealth in larger population centres or will the flexibility of the digital break this pattern?
To access the report, visit https://www.csiro.au/en/research/technology-space/data/the-geography-of-australias-digital-industries