Dr Troy Neilson, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Sovereign Australia AI, is one of the rare Australian AI experts who combines deep technical grounding with strong commercial experience. He holds a PhD in AI and Machine Learning and brings more than 20 years of experience in startups and commercialisation, having overseen the implementation of over 100 AI-driven solutions across diverse industries.
Troy met his co-founder Simon Kriss through Kangaroos LLM, a non-profit initiative where both were invited to join an advisory panel. When that initiative failed to gain traction, Troy and Simon decided to fill the gap themselves — Troy traveled from the Gold Coast to Brisbane to meet Simon, and the two spent a full day mapping out what would eventually become Sovereign Australia AI.
As CTO, Troy’s focus has been on prioritizing sovereignty and trust over direct competition with global players. Under his technical leadership, the company placed Australia’s largest-ever AI hardware order — 256 Nvidia Blackwell B200 GPUs — to train its upcoming foundational models, Ginan and Australis. These models are being built specifically to reflect Australian culture, language, and values, giving the country a trustworthy, locally-built AI alternative.
Troy has been candid that building sovereign AI is no small technical challenge, but believes Australia has the expertise to get it done. His technical vision, paired with Simon Kriss’s policy insight, has positioned Sovereign Australia AI as a landmark moment in the country’s AI infrastructure history.
