Defence quiet on Australia's role in Five Eyes AI program Arcadia

Defence has declined to say how much Australia is spending on Project Arcadia, the US-led effort to pool Five Eyes military data into a shared, AI-ready battlefield picture.

Australia is preparing to host the next round of Arcadia talks in Sydney in November, with Defence chief information officer Chris Crozier receiving the carved Māui's hook ceremonial taonga from his United States counterpart for the purpose. 

Arcadia was the centrepiece of the Combined Digital Leadership Summit, a four-day meeting of Five Eyes defence digital chiefs that closed at the Pentagon in May. 

The US Department of War described the project as a shared digital ecosystem that would let the five nations integrate data from across their forces into a common operating picture for coalition operations

"[Project] Arcadia is how we make that vision a reality," Kirsten Davies, Department of War chief information officer, said at the time. 

Davies called it "not merely an IT project, but the operational imperative for our time".

The extent of Australian involvement in Project Arcadia remains unclear however.

Defence did not answer questions from iTnews about the program's budget, timeline or procurement.

Across the Tasman, the picture is considerably clearer.

Radio New Zealand reported that a New Zealand Defence Force commander warned in April that the country would be cut off from Five Eyes information exchanges if it did not sign up.

New Zealand joined a month later, and the NZDF will need extra funding in Budget 2027 for a build it expects to take six years, RNZ reported. 

Member nations committed to using Arcadia as core infrastructure for artificial intelligence and command and control data flows, the Pentagon said. 

Defence has been more forthcoming about other US targeting software. In June, it told senate estimates that it runs Palantir's Maven Smart System in a sandbox disconnected from Defence networks, with the platform's AI functions switched off.