Federal Govt awards Research Council $23.8 million

The Gillard Government has provided an additional $23.8 million in funding to the Australian Research Council for research into cyber safety.

The funding will enable the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Ultrahigh Bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS) to this year expand its research program until 2017.

Innovation minister, Senator Kim Carr, said the new photonic chip technology being developed by CUDOS would complement the National Broadband Network (NBN).

“As the NBN fibre is rolled out to more and more homes, the traffic on the core of the network will rise,” Carr said in a statement. “New technology being developed by CUDOS to increase the core network capacity will help ensure home users can get 1Gbps, 10Gbps or more in the future as their need grows.”

According to Carr, the technology researched by CUDOS would have many additional uses.

“CUDOS is generating and processing new wavelengths of laser light for sensing chemical signatures which can detect explosive material or chemicals potentially used in a terrorist threat, environmental pollutants or disease," he said. “This has enormous implications for the nation’s border security in areas like Customs and Quarantine.

"The technology being developed will also help to maintain our envied reputation for providing clean, green, disease-free products and, importantly, will help to ensure that exotic diseases do not become established in Australia.”

The centre is a collaborative group of six Australian universities, with research characterised by strong Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) performance in their disciplines of optical physics and electrical and electronic engineering.

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