The Sydney Dialogue

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Sydney Dialogue is the premier policy summit for critical, emerging and cyber technologies.

Technology is being developed much faster than societies can regulate it or even fully absorb its implications.

The remarkable surge in the capabilities of generative artificial intelligence (AI), and the lack of any agreed roadmap on what the next breakthrough will be – much less how governments might respond – are just the latest and most profound demonstrations of the growing gulf between the intrepid advances of innovators and the understandably tentative actions of policy-makers.

More than ever before, we face a risk that smaller groups of people have a monopoly on key decisions, including decisions they haven’t asked for and aren’t equipped to make. There is also a risk that if we fail to connect and communicate between governments, business and civil society, good ideas will never make it out of the silos in which they germinate.

The Sydney Dialogue (TSD) was created to help break down these silos and bring together governments, businesses and civil society to discuss and progress policy options. We will forecast the technologies of the next decade that will change our societies, economies and national security, prioritising speakers and delegates who are willing to push the envelope. We will promote diverse views that stimulate real conversations about the best ways to seize opportunities and minimise risks.

TSD reaches across technology fields – AI, cybersecurity, quantum computing, biotechnology, climate and space technologies to name just a few – and is focused on bringing more diverse voices into public debates. The positions of the United States, China and Europe tend to dominate the global conversation, while the world hears too little about the policy thinking taking place in India, Japan, Southeast Asia and Oceania.

TSD 2024 will have political leaders, senior officials, technology industry innovators and civil society leaders feature in a mix of keynote speeches, panel discussions, closed-room sessions, briefings and media engagements. TSD is also a place where new partnerships are built between governments and with industry, and where existing partnerships are deepened.

TSD 2024 is the third Sydney Dialogue. Explore TSD 2021 and TSD 2023 here to find out more about the speakers, sessions, side events and supporters that were involved in previous dialogues.

Organisations and governments can find out more about partnership opportunities for TSD 2024 here.