A bold Australia can stake its claim in a post-pandemic world

While the rest of the world slowly re-emerges from lockdown, Australia risks missing a huge opportunity to take advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic and redefine both our economy and our future.

While the rest of the world slowly re-emerges from lockdown, Australia risks missing a huge opportunity to take advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic and redefine both our economy and our future.

While the immediate response to the coronavirus pandemic helped buttress the economy, we are now looking to a post COVID-19 world. Rather than see 2020 as a lost year, we should consider it a watershed, a reset button, a clean slate to seize the opportunity and reject a ‘business as usual’ resumption of the economy. Instead, Australia must develop a long-term data-led, digital economy for the future. Multiple factors push us in this direction.

After navigating COVID-19, we now have the impetus for change. The pandemic shifted our perspective on many things; it quashed myths regarding work from anywhere, increased efficiency and productivity, and accelerated our adoption of new technologies. In doing so, it highlighted how reliant we are on technology infrastructure and how adaptable we are when to forced change.

Many of us became remote workers overnight. We adopted new technologies, navigated a new borderless work-life balance, and learned new ‘survival skills’ to remain efficient and productive. Technology helped run businesses in our absence with remote IT and minimum staff keeping core and critical functions operating, our students educated, and government functioning.

Yet, as restrictions ease, there are growing signs we may be defaulting to ‘business as usual’ and regressing to pre COVID-19 practices. This, at a time when our neighbours are unleashing their energies on accelerating – not decelerating – their new-found digital environment and widening the chasm between the pre-and-post COVID-19 business environment.

Rather than regress, we should look to invest in next-generation digital infrastructure to help supercharge our technology sector – a sector currently worth $122 billion to our economy, and employing a workforce of over half a million.

Look to our neighbours, look to the future

In China, an estimated $1.4 trillion is earmarked for the economy to invest in next-generation infrastructure such as 5G wireless networks, IoT sensors, data centres, and electric vehicle charging stations. Simultaneously, the government is encouraging a shift toward smart manufacturing and other “internet Plus” initiatives which aim to integrate digital technologies with traditional industries.

These commitments underscore China’s desire to transform its economy and become a global leader in key technologies, paving the way for massive employment opportunities and innovations in high-growth industries such as remote learning and working, telehealth, and autonomous vehicles.

While the infrastructure investments themselves are at a scale rarely witnessed before – including US$35 billion for 5G Base Stations, US$57 billion for Data Centres and Artificial Intelligence, and $US27 billion for Industrial IoT – there’s a parallel push to make better use of existing data, such as the Jilin ‘City Brain’ project which will for the first time see multiple government databases connected to pave the way for the ultimate smart city.

In South Korea, similar measures to stimulate the economy in the immediate term and future-proof it for the long term have been announced as part of what’s been dubbed the ‘Korean New Deal’.

Investment and support for Artificial Intelligence and 5G communications are the centrepieces of the plan designed to create jobs and spur growth in the wake of the pandemic. The stimulus measures aim to reshape the country’s economy and focus on accelerating the digitalisation of industries. While exact figures are yet to be released, South Korea plans to create a fund to support AI development, build sites for robot testing, support businesses to launch new services that make use of data, and prioritise the construction of a nationwide 5G network.

Leap forward, not step back

Australia can learn from visionary economic strategies like these. We are entering our first recession since 1991. More than 80 per cent of businesses have been forced to stop all or some economic activity due to COVID-19, and approximately600,000 jobs were lost in April alone.

So, we will all have to learn to do more with less and technology can help our economy achieve this. The tools already exist – cloud, software, 5G, IoT, automation, and AI – but require a long-term plan and commitment to reimagine the status quo.

In 2003, after the SARS outbreak, the world talked ‘change’ but largely reverted to business as usual. Many of our Asian neighbours changed, so when COVID-19 struck they were better prepared to act, respond, and recover.

Now in 2020, we have the opportunity to learn and evolve with our neighbours once again. To capitalise on the latest technologies and brightest thinking. To rebuild Australia as a world leading digital-based and data-led economy.

The opportunity is ours. Let’s not miss out a second time.

Lee Thompson is Managing Director Australia and New Zealand for enterprise cloud and hyperconverged infrastructure company Nutanix