Tech Impact Assessment: Diplomatic Opportunities

In October 2025, the Social Cyber Institute posted the final report of a project funded by the Australia India Cyber and Critical Technologies Partnership. The report was titled 'Technology Impact Assessment for Peace and Stability: Diplomatic Opportuniites for Australia and India'. Six of the eight co-authors were affiliated with the Social Cyber Institute. Here are key highlights.

1. "Bilateral technology assessments between emerging strategic partners like Australia and India can help bridge geopolitical divides while advancing shared interests in tech governance".

2. "Critical technology cooperation must involve granular analysis of risks t

   o peace/stability, such as quantum sensing applications in military radar systems". ​

3. "Trade wars are increasingly tech wars at their core, requiring new frameworks for managing competitive innovation without destabilizing international relations". ​

4. "Effective technology assessment requires tripartite collaboration between governments, private tech companies, and academic researchers". ​

5. "Military applications of emerging technologies demand separate assessment frameworks from civilian uses due to different risk profiles". ​

6. "Semiconductor supply chains and 6G infrastructure require coordinated Indo-Pacific assessments to prevent fragmentation of technical standards". ​

7. "Export controls on AI chips demonstrate how technology impact assessments must account for geopolitical alignment between private sector and national governments". ​

8. "Multilateral technology assessments through forums like the Quad could help harmonize approaches between democracies facing similar challenges". ​

9. "Australia and India could establish a standing mechanism for bilateral impact assessment of critical technologies that could become the hub or model for a wider regional initiative".

10. 'For Australia and India, this effort would focus on a political geography of shared interest, such as developing countries of the Indian Ocean region, Southeast Asia and potentially the South Pacific.'

11. 'This undertaking would ideally be based on a limited set of critical technologies of most value to those countries, such as artificial intelligence (AI) applications, for the purposes of economic development that is an essential underpinning of regional security.'

12. 'Our proposition is to shift the locus of advanced TIA from Europe and the US, where it has been firmly established through four decades, to a gradually expanding number of geographies outside the club of advanced economies.'

All outputs of the project (papers, webinar videos, a professional education syllabus, and video recordings of stakeholder interviews) can be found here.