Australia finds itself at a pivotal juncture in the global artificial intelligence (AI) landscape, presented with a unique opportunity to become Southeast Asia’s AI hub. This prospect arises from the United States’ recent implementation of the AI Diffusion Framework, a policy designed to regulate the export of advanced AI chips and model weights. Under this framework, countries are categorised into tiers, with Australia among the 18 nations granted unrestricted access to U.S.-origin AI technologies.