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On the same day Trump called for an end to the $84 billion US chips subsidy program, the Albanese government attacked the Coalition's plan to review its massive quantum computing bet.
US President Donald Trump’s latest policy swerve, announced during an address to Congress on Wednesday, has a direct parallel to Australia’s new economy. The dollar figures might be much smaller, but the economic impact could be enormous.
Just moments before Trump announced plans to scrap the CHIPS Act, a USD52 billion ($84 billion) subsidy program for semiconductor manufacturing instigated by his predecessor Joe Biden ("The CHIPS act is a horrible, horrible thing," he told lawmakers), Australian Industry Minister Ed Husic made opposite noises about his own government’s flagship next-generation subsidy program.
The federal and Queensland governments last year made a controversial decision to invest $940 million in quantum computing startup PsiQuantum. Peter Dutton, increasingly adopting the red-tape slashing rhetoric of Trump, previously called the investment the type of “Labor indulgence” a Coalition government would cut. Husic reckons that would be a big mistake.
“It would signal that the Australian government under Peter Dutton would be an unreliable partner in honouring contracts, and I don't think that's a smart move,” Husic told Capital Brief on the sidelines of Southstart (an industry event we attended as a guest of the conference).
