Australian Information Industry Association appoints permanent CEO amid AI copyright stoush
Elizabeth Whitelock has been appointed CEO at the broad IT and tech sector group as key debates around copyright, data centres and R&D progress.
The Australian Industry Information Association (AIIA) has cemented Elizabeth Whitelock as its permanent CEO amid a political fight to maintain copyright flexibility for AI and a push for key data centre and R&D initiatives.
The AIIA is Australia's broad-church tech industry group with 250 members spanning hyperscale cloud operators like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Google, tech and software giants like Apple, SAP, Adobe, Salesforce and Cisco, as well as universities, consultancies and Australian companies like CDC Data Centres and Trellis Data.
Whitelock, who has been on the board of the group for the past five years and interim CEO since August, is stepping into the top job just as the tech sector pushes back on proposed standardised content licensing for AI training.
While she told Capital Brief she welcomed the light-touch regulatory approach outlined in the government’s National AI Plan and supports Australia’s existing technology-neutral guardrails, the group clearly has concerns about the future of copyright law.
