The new Australia-UK Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is set to ease business operations for UK-registered tech firm SoftIron across Australia and the United Kingdom, enabling it to grow operations and improve its offerings across two of its key geographies.
Jason Van de Schyff, chief operating officer at SoftIron, said the company will benefit from FTA’s Innovation Chapter and the free flow of people and data between Australia and the UK when the FTA goes live.
In November 2022, SoftIron launched Australia’s first-ever facility that manufactures all the components needed for built-to-order cloud infrastructure.
The advanced manufacturing facility, located in Botany, New South Wales, builds “clean” computer servers for customers that want to ensure there is no unknown hardware or code operating in their data centres.
This will pave the way for onshoring ICT supply chains and is expected to help defence, government, and Australian IT providers manage both their commercial and strategic risk.
The new facility received $1.5 million in funding from an Australian Defence Department Innovation grant program under the Sovereign Industrial Capability Program.
Components produced at the Botany facility will be used in HyperCloud, SoftIron’s world-first technology that enables customers to build and run their own secure clouds, eliminating the risk of third-party software infecting the process.
In an article, Austrade highlighted HyperCloud’s potential to be an ideal platform to enable secure information-sharing for industry and government in the AUKUS partnership.
Van de Schyff said Austrade has helped the company connect to relevant businesses, media, industry organisations, and policymakers to accelerate its growth and development across Australia and the UK.
“Austrade has also supported us with identifying funding initiatives that enabled us to build our sovereign manufacturing facility. Finally, they were instrumental in connecting us to government and defence officials in the UK to help with the launch of our product for AUKUS.”
