Decision Advantage refers to the ability to process, analyse, and act upon information faster and more accurately than adversaries. The Emerging and Disruptive Technologies (EDT) Decision Advantage Program will not deliver short-term acquisition outcomes – it will deliver discovery, new knowledge, concepts and prototypes to help protect against surprise and build capability to provide an international capability edge for Australia.

The call to market sought cutting-edge and innovative proposals that apply to one or more of the technology areas outlined in the Opportunity Statements approved by the Chief Defence Scientist. These areas are:

  • Automated Data Integration and Interpretation
  • Machine Reasoning
  • Multi-Modal Data Fusion
  • Augmented Human-Machine Reasoning
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) Agents
  • AI Multi-Modal Foundation Model
  • AI Orchestration.

The Request for Proposal (RFP) closed on 24 January 2025.

The following 14 Australian organisations were successful with contracts signed to strengthen Decision Advantage capability effect across Defence domains, including air, land, space, maritime and cyber.

Organisation State Contract value (incl GST)
Australian National University ACT $1,023,209.85
Australian Systems Research Pty Ltd VIC $1,836,389.50
Cortisonic Pty Ltd QLD $3,232,494.10
Curtin University WA $3,165,877.87
Evolving Machine Intelligence Pty Ltd QLD $3,241,106.00
Macquarie University and Western Sydney University NSW $3,286,010.20
Space Machines Company Pty Ltd NSW $2,930,854.30
Swordfish Computing Pty Ltd SA $3,092,317.48
TKMS Sonartech Atlas Pty Ltd NSW $2,114,924.90
University of New South Wales NSW $3,220,633.56
University of Queensland QLD $3,059,090.10
University of Technology Sydney NSW $3,257,745.15
Visionary Machines Pty Ltd NSW $2,934,406.20
Western Sydney University NSW $3,164,305.10

Future EDT program opportunities will be available on the Opportunities page.