NBN announces AI, IoT R&D with Sydney and Melbourne universities ZDNet

The company rolling out Australia's National Broadband Network (NBN) has announced entering three-year research and development (R&D) partnerships with the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and the University of Melbourne. Under what it called "major collaborative relationships", NBN said it would work with the two universities on Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), smart cities, programmable networks, data analytics and visualisation, wireless technologies, and "technology for social good" R&D projects. "These two new relationships will help NBN Co double down on our strong focus on technology innovation for customer experience and operational excellence," NBN CTO Ray Owen explained. "With these innovative institutions -- UoM and UTS -- we saw a natural fit in helping NBN Co further enable the digital economy." NBN added that the agreements are also expected to cover opportunities such as "student exchanges" and post-doctoral research collaboration by giving the universities "access to real-world telecoms network operational data".