Best of the week — the five most popular stories among @AuManufacturing’s readers

What were the five biggest stories this week? Here’s what visitors to this site were reading.

AUSTRALIA’S PLACE IN THE SEMICONDUCTOR WORLD: SILICON IS QUANTUM, QUANTUM IS SILICON, AND AUSTRALIA MIGHT FINALLY HAVE AN EDGE

Beginning the second week of our editorial series, Australia’s place in the semiconductor world, Dr Andre Saraiva looked at Australia’s heritage in quantum computing, and suggests that the nation could turn a chip crisis into a quantum opportunity.

A stone’s throw away from Bondi and Coogee, silicon-based quantum computing was invented. This was 1998, and its inventor, Bruce Kane, was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of New South Wales. Surrounded by visionary scientists and engineers, Dr Kane’s idea flourished down under. Now, 24 years later, Sydney is a world capital of quantum, and silicon qubits are the poster child.

AUSTRALIA’S PLACE IN THE SEMICONDUCTOR WORLD: WHY NOT HERE?

In this installment of Australia’s place in the semiconductor world, we heard from an international point of view.

Coby Hanoch from the ASX-listed, Israel-based Weebit Nano wrote that as the CEO of an Israeli semiconductor company traded on the ASX, he often asks himself how it is possible that Australia, an advanced country with great engineering talent, has not invested in a local semiconductor industry.

It’s a point he has raised several times with Australian political leaders, the Australian ambassador to Israel, the head of the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce (AICC), and others.

AUSTRALIA’S OLDEST CEMENT COMPANY ACTS TOWARDS NET ZERO

Australia’s oldest cement manufacturer Adbri doubled down on its commitment to net zero emissions from producing what are some of the world’s most important, but hard to abate, manufactures – cement and lime.

Previously known as Adelaide Brighton Cement, the company and industrial technology group Calix are co-developing a Calix calciner for lime production with CO2 capture in a five-year project.

The project will cover lime production of 30,000 tonnes a year and capture of 20,000 tonnes a year of CO2.

GROWTH CENTRES REPORT COMMISSIONED BY MORRISON GOVERNMENT IN 2019 FINALLY MADE PUBLIC

An ACIL Allen report commissioned in 2019 by the previous federal government evaluating the impact of the Industry Growth Centres initiative has finally been made publicly available.

Industry Growth Centres Initiative: initial impact evaluation was published on the industry department’s website on Tuesday. The previously-buried report – which Labor unsuccessfully tried to force the release of while in opposition – was leaked to @AuManufacturing last year.

WHAT NEXT FOR INDUSTRY GROWTH CENTRES?

Peter Roberts wrote that now that the federal government has released the review into the six Industry Growth Centres, the big question remains – what will be their replacement and will they become true application-oriented innovation organisations we see in the UK’s Catapult Centres and Germany’s Fraunhofer institutes?

At this stage the federal government has not revealed its own preferred model for a son-of-IGC scheme, but we do have a few clues.

Picture: Diraq