Sydney SoftIron plant to help IT firms avoid supply chain, security risks

SoftIron is pitching its new Sydney IT component manufacturing plant as a way for local IT companies to mitigate the risk of supply chain delays and hardware backdoors.

Backed by a $1.5 million Department of Defence sovereign industrial capability grant, SoftIron’s ‘advanced manufacturing facility’ in Botany Bay will produce components for SoftIron’s HyperCloud Intelligent Cloud Fabric. 

Onshoring or “friend-shoring” ICT supply chains enables IT providers to manage commercial and strategic risk, claimed SoftIron chief operations officer Jason Van Der Schyf.

 “Recent geopolitical events and the deteriorating strategic environment have exposed major weaknesses in global supply chains, particularly in the area of critical technology,” Van Der Schyff stated.

He also talked up the risk of "malicious state actors introducing covert hardware or firmware during the manufacturing process” in foreign-manufactured components.

“Unlike manufacturers who rely on opaque supply chains for their componentry, SoftIron offers total transparency of the design and manufacturing of hardware and software supply chains in its HyperCloud IT infrastructure.”

SoftIron's ‘secure provenance’ program allows select customers to audit products from end-to-end to check they are delivered as designed and specified. 

Van Der Schyff said the factory would help Australia take advantage of the AUKUS agreement, which will increase information sharing between the US, the UK and Australia, and their industry partners.

“We are seeing other Western nations like the United States move toward supply chain security in the area of critical technology with initiatives like the Chips Act,” Van der Schyff said. 

“SoftIron is ahead of the curve here in Australia by identifying the looming challenge and putting in place capabilities to meet it.”

Scheduled to open in June this year, construction of the plant was held up by the late arrival of a South Korean pick-and-place machine that assembles chips onto circuit boards for soldering and control systems, which were delayed by the semiconductor shortage. 

"The grand irony of building a facility that will make us more resilient as a nation to supply chain issues, is battling supply chain woes,” SoftIron chief operations officer Jason Van Der Schyf told CRN sister publication iTnews back in June. 

The UK-headquartered vendor’s Australian channel partners include Baidam Solutions, Deep Recognition, JEM Computer Systems, NCI Australia, Real World Technologies and Servers Australia.

The Botany Bay factory was opened by Assistant Minister for Defence Matt Thistlethwaite.