A Ruthless Pursuit of Frontier Ambition

Australia already has deep capability across quantum, semiconductors, photonics, critical minerals and advanced manufacturing. Former Australian Chief Scientist Dr Cathy Foley believes the opportunity is to turn more of that capability into Australian industry.

And Australia doesn’t need to do everything.

In this episode of A Ruthless Pursuit of Frontier Ambition, Dr Foley joins Stef Winwood and Rama Razy to unpack where Australia can compete across the semiconductor supply chain — from processing critical minerals and compound semiconductors to chip design, advanced packaging and the infrastructure needed to help deep-tech companies scale.

Dr Foley has spent decades at the intersection of science and industry. Her own work in superconducting technology went on to be used in mineral exploration, and she has since become one of Australia’s strongest advocates for building industries around the science and technology developed here.

In A Ruthless Pursuit of Australian Smarts, they discuss:

• Where Australia can compete in the global semiconductor supply chain

• Moving from a mining country to a materials country

• The opportunity in compound semiconductors, chip design and advanced packaging

• Why Australian deep-tech companies are starting to scale faster

• Patient capital, procurement and keeping Australian IP onshore

• Building shared advanced manufacturing capability at Bradfield

• Turning Dr Foley’s superconducting research into billions of dollars of economic value

• Why quantum is the frontier where Australia could lead the world

Dr Cathy Foley is a former Australian Chief Scientist, Chair of the Advanced Manufacturing Readiness Facility Board and Patron of Semiconductor Australia 2026.

A Ruthless Pursuit of Frontier Ambition goes inside the companies, technology and people building Australia’s next industries — and the investment, commercialisation and scale required to turn frontier technology into enduring businesses.

Continue the conversation at Semiconductor Australia 2026

22 October | ILUMINA, Sydney + online

Get tickets: https://www.semiconductoraustralia.com

Counter-drone systems can be heavy, bulky and expensive. Australian semiconductor company MILLIBEAM is working to make them dramatically smaller — with an ambition to bring that capability towards the size of a mobile phone.

But doing that has meant going much deeper than the finished product.

MILLIBEAM develops its own semiconductor chips and antennas, bringing them together with power electronics and signal-generation architecture to build RF systems from the silicon up. Founder and CEO Venkata Gutta argues that when you’re creating a new market, the technology you need may not exist on a supplier’s roadmap.

In A Ruthless Pursuit of Australia’s Autonomous Edge: From Impossible to the Battlefield, Venkata joins Stef Winwood and Rama Razy to discuss:

• Why MILLIBEAM is building counter-drone technology from the semiconductor up
• The push to make counter-drone systems smaller, lighter and more portable
• Why emerging markets such as drones, robotics and autonomous systems aren’t always well served by existing semiconductor suppliers
• The decision to build chips, antennas and systems in-house
• What vertical integration means for the speed at which MILLIBEAM can develop its technology
• The capital and partnerships required to build an Australian semiconductor company
• Venkata’s ambition to build sovereign capability — and a larger industry around it in Australia

A Ruthless Pursuit of Frontier Ambition goes inside the companies, technology and people building Australia’s next industries — and the investment, commercialisation and scale required to turn frontier technology into enduring businesses.

Continue the conversation at Semiconductor Australia 2026.

Join founders, investors, researchers and industry leaders in Sydney on 22 October for a day focused on the technology, capital and commercial opportunities shaping Australia’s semiconductor sector.

Semiconductor Australia 2026

22 October | ILUMINA, Sydney + online

Get tickets: https://www.semiconductoraustralia.com

Hypersonics are one of the most critical and strategic dual-use capabilities being pursued around the world right now. Australia has already built hypersonic technology that rivals anyone on Earth. The harder fight is backing the manufacturing, scaling, and global export from here.

Hypersonix Launch Systems is developing hydrogen-powered hypersonic aircraft capable of travelling up to 12 times the speed of sound.

In the first episode of The Ruthless Pursuit of Frontier Ambition, Stef Winwood and Rama Razy sit down with Hypersonix and Fortifyedge.ai co-founder David Waterhouse to talk about what it takes to build an Australian frontier-technology company for a global market.

They get into the realities of raising capital for deep tech, why Australian companies need to think internationally from day one, the importance of partnerships, and what happens to Australian capability when ownership and investment increasingly move offshore.

David also explains why speed, and the speed of innovation and market response itself,  or, as he puts it, “cadence, cadence, cadence”, matters well beyond the technology itself.

In this episode:

• Building Hypersonix Launch Systems and competing in the global hypersonics market

• Why raising capital in Australia can take too long

• How conferences helped Hypersonix build international partnerships

• Working with organisations including NASA, the US Defence Innovation Unit, and Rocket Lab

• Why ownership and the ability to respond immediately matters when we talk about sovereign capability

• What Australia needs to do differently if it wants to build frontier-technology companies at global scale

The Ruthless Pursuit of Frontier Ambition is a new series from Ruthless Productions exploring the people building extraordinary technology and the capital, commercial decisions and ambition required to turn it into globally significant companies.

The conversation continues at Semiconductor Australia 2026, 22 October at ILUMINA, Sydney and online.

Get tickets: https://www.semiconductoraustralia.com/info

#SA26 #Semiconductors #DeepTech #SovereignCapability #AustralianInnovation

Australia produces world-class technology. But what does it take to turn breakthrough ideas into globally significant companies — and keep more of the value here?

In this launch conversation with ausbiz, hosts Stef Winwood and Rama Razy introduce A Ruthless Pursuit of Frontier Ambition and the bigger mission behind Ruthless Ventures’ Sovereign Series.

They unpack why Australian deep tech can struggle at the point of commercialisation, what investors need to understand beyond the science, and the opportunities emerging across semiconductors, quantum, AI and defence.

Plus, why the podcast is going behind the technology to meet the founders taking extraordinary ideas from lab to market — the risks they’ve taken, who backed them, where they’ve failed and what it takes to build something that hasn’t existed before. Pasted markdown

This is A Ruthless Pursuit of Frontier Ambition.

Semiconductor Australia 2026

22 October | ILUMINA, Sydney

In person + online

Get tickets: https://www.semiconductoraustralia.com