Victoria joins whole-of-govt agreement with AWS

The Victorian Government is joining the existing Australian whole-of-government agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS).

AWS first signed the whole-of-government deal back in 2019, with three-year renewals taking place in both 2022 and earlier this year.

The Whole-of-Government Agreement will now underpin the AWS State Purchase Contract (SPC), enabling Victorian Government departments and entities to gain access to over 240 AWS cloud services, including AI, security, and quantum technologies, where 164 of these services are now assessed at the PROTECTED level under the Infosec Registered Assessors Program (IRAP). 

In 2023, AWS launched a second infrastructure Region in Australia, located in Melbourne, bringing compute, storage, AI, and machine learning closer to customers and delivering lower network latency while meeting local data-residency requirements.

This year, AWS announced a AU$20 billion investment into Australia from 2025 to 2029 to expand, operate, and maintain its data centre infrastructure.

The Coroners Court of Victoria has also collaborated with AWS to take advantage of the  potential of AI in Victoria’s justice system. Leveraging Amazon Bedrock, a prototype was developed to help address immediate needs, while also establishing a pathway for broader judicial innovation using AI.  

To ensure responsible adoption of these advanced technologies, AWS has upskilled public sector staff within the Victorian Government in the ethical use and application of artificial intelligence.

AWS is also investing in Victoria's future workforce through education partnerships.

Working with Swinburne University of Technology, AWS has supported the Women in STEM Diploma of Applied Technologies – Cloud Technologies, a program at Swinburne that combines paid work with study. Students work at AWS three days a week while studying part-time for two days. 

In June, the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) signed a $70-million deal with AWS, bringing the cloud provider’s renegotiated government-wide deal to around $364 million in total value.