Atlas report
AI researchers in Australia
The University of Sydney is the largest, with 1 246 indexed researchers, barely ahead of The University of Melbourne at 949. No single place dominates here.
The short answer
By number of indexed researchers, Australia ranks 11th of 132 countries, with 11 272 profiles.
Per million inhabitants, Australia has 422 AI researchers in the index against 88 worldwide, 4.8 times the world figure.
Industry employs 1.7% of Australia's indexed AI researchers; worldwide the share is 8.9%, so the country runs at 19% of the average.
What stands out
With 0.3% of the world's people and 1.6% of its indexed AI researchers, Australia runs at 4.8 times its demographic weight.
Among people who started since 2024, the subject gaining fastest in Australia is Multimodal Machine Learning Applications: its share of newcomers is 2.1 times what it was over the three previous years, with 408 people starting on it.
The subject where Australia weighs most against the rest of the world is Adversarial Robustness in Machine Learning: 2.7% of its subject assignments work on it, 1.5 times the world share of 1.9%.
Subjects
The single most common subject is Topic Modeling, on which 7.4% of Australia's subject assignments fall.
Subject reports: Multimodal Machine Learning Applications, Natural Language Processing Techniques, Domain Adaptation and Few-Shot Learning, Adversarial Robustness in Machine Learning, Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI).
| Subject | Researchers | Share here | Share worldwide |
|---|---|---|---|
| Topic Modeling | 1 586 | 7.4% | 7.9% |
| Advanced Neural Network Applications | 792 | 3.7% | 4.3% |
| Multimodal Machine Learning Applications | 750 | 3.5% | 3.9% |
| Natural Language Processing Techniques | 685 | 3.2% | 4.3% |
| Domain Adaptation and Few-Shot Learning | 597 | 2.8% | 2.5% |
| Adversarial Robustness in Machine Learning | 584 | 2.7% | 1.9% |
| Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) | 355 | 1.7% | 1.5% |
| Machine Learning in Healthcare | 240 | 1.1% | 0.9% |
Newcomers by year
Newcomers since 2024 number 2 534 in Australia, against 1 200 between 2021 and 2023: a ratio of 2.1, where the world sits at 1.8.
The 2025 intake for Australia was 1.0 times the average of the three previous years, against 0.8 worldwide.
| First publication | New in Australia | Share of the world's newcomers |
|---|---|---|
| 2019 | 318 | 1.6% |
| 2020 | 297 | 1.4% |
| 2021 | 362 | 1.5% |
| 2022 | 464 | 1.4% |
| 2023 | 374 | 1.2% |
| 2024 | 395 | 1.3% |
| 2025 | 404 | 1.6% |
Institutions
The University of Sydney is the largest institution; with the next two it accounts for 27% of the researchers indexed in Australia.
The University of Sydney is the largest, with 1 246 indexed researchers, barely ahead of The University of Melbourne at 949. No single place dominates here. Everyone else sits in places too small to name without pointing at individuals.
| Institution | Researchers | Share of the country |
|---|---|---|
| The University of Sydney | 1 246 | 11% |
| The University of Melbourne | 949 | 8.4% |
| University of Technology Sydney | 834 | 7.4% |
Compared with its peers
Read against Hong Kong and Italy, the two nearest countries by headcount, the differences are in the rates, not the totals. The gap that stands out is the share working in a company: 1.7% here, below the 4.7% of those two. Reports: AI researchers in Italy.
| Australia | Hong Kong | Italy | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Researchers | 11 272 | 10 086 | 13 285 |
| Per million inhabitants | 422 | 1345 | 226 |
| In a company | 1.7% | 0.0% | 4.7% |
| Early career | 45% | 58% | 47% |
| Newcomers, recent against previous window | 2.1 | 3.0 | 1.2 |
Method
A country is where the institution sits, so someone who has moved and not yet published from the new address still counts at the old one. Counts move between two refreshes because the index grows every night. The method page sets out the sources and what each field leaves out.
Common questions
- How many AI researchers are there in Australia?
- 11 272 researchers in the Founding Hires index have an institution in Australia, 1.6% of all profiles with a known country, as of October 2026. The index counts people who published AI research, so this is a floor on the field, not a census.
- Where do you find AI researchers in Australia?
- The University of Sydney, 1 246, The University of Melbourne, 949, University of Technology Sydney, 834. Their most common subject is Topic Modeling, 7.4% of the country's subject assignments.
- What is Australia strongest in?
- Adversarial Robustness in Machine Learning, at 1.5 times the world share.
- Is the pool of AI researchers in Australia growing?
- Yes, faster than the world. Since 2024, 2 534 people in Australia published for the first time, against 1 200 over the three years before, a ratio of 2.1 where the world sits at 1.8.
The names behind the numbers
Every count on this page is a list in the index.
Search it by subject and country to find who leads the work today, and set an alert on the ones about to come free, for $179 a month or 149 € in the euro area. Or hand the search over and pay only when someone joins.