US tech consultancy firm MTX Group said it will bring 500 jobs to South Australia over the next three to five years as it sets up its regional headquarters in Adelaide.
The offices are the company’s first in Australia and will help its expansion into the Asia-Pacific region.
MTX founder and chairman Das Nobel said Adelaide was “attractive” for the consulting firm as the city looks to build on its Lot Fourteen innovation precinct.
“South Australia offers a unique platform through research, skills and collaborations that will enable development opportunities in AI, space technology, renewable energy and health,” Nobel said.
“MTX will be able to bridge academic consortiums and businesses in a mutual partnership that provides salient training internships, high-paying jobs, and curriculum to this talent source.”
The company’s CEO Ben Papps said MTX hopes to lean on local artificial intelligence capabilities coming out of the Australian Institute of Machine Learning and the MIT Bigdata Living Lab, both of which operate out of Lot Fourteen.
“MTX is excited to partner with these, and other research initiatives, that enable safe and secure data analysis to identify growth opportunities and improve government decision-making and socioeconomic outcomes.”
For South Australia, MTX’s arrival is just the latest in tech companies looking to set up local or regional offices in Adelaide
This year alone has seen Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud, and Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) set up their first offices in Adelaide.
Last year, Accenture said it had struck a deal with the state government to create a tech hub, promising to bring 2,000 jobs in five years – which Premier Steven Marshall described at the time as a “jobs bananza”.
Marshall described MTX’s plans for its Adelaide HQ as a “big coup” for the state which, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, boasted the highest unemployment rate in the country in March.
The state government also hopes its local tech hub will help alleviate the notorious ‘brain drain’ which has seen SA regularly losing migrants interstate for the past two decades.
Non-profit coding school 42 also opened its doors in Adelaide this month and will help train some of the state’s next generation of tech professionals.
Speaking at the establishment of MTX’s regional headquarters on Friday, Finance Minister and South Australian Senator Simon Birmingham said the company’s move aligned with the government’s recently announced $1.2 billion digital spend.
“That is about two things at it's heart,” Birmingham said. “More jobs and better lives.
“That's what all of the work and investment in these areas of science, technology, digital and technological capability ultimately comes down to.”
