Deepening the analysis
Roundtable 2 took place on December 16, 2025 at Fort Tectoria in Victoria. Twenty-two participants returned to continue the work that began in November, joined by several new voices. The session was again conducted under Chatham House rules.
Where Roundtable 1 had focused on mapping, Roundtable 2 went deeper. The agenda shifted from inventory to analysis: what are the systemic risks that could prevent this cluster from forming, and what conditions would need to be true for it to succeed?
Pressure-testing the assumptions
The founding team's six assumptions were placed back on the table for a more rigorous examination. This time, participants were asked not just to validate them but to stress-test them: to identify where they might be wrong, oversimplified, or context-dependent.
Several assumptions held up well. The presence of anchor institutions with both the incentive and the capacity to participate in shared data infrastructure was confirmed. The availability of clean energy for data centre development was validated as a real differentiator, not just a talking point.
Other assumptions invited more nuance. The assumption that cross-sector data sharing would be straightforward given existing relationships proved more complicated in practice. Privacy frameworks, liability concerns, and a lack of standard data agreements created friction that goodwill alone could not dissolve. Addressing these barriers would need to be structural, not just relational.
Working group themes emerge
A significant output of Roundtable 2 was the identification of four priority working group themes: ocean and marine technology, health informatics, data sovereignty and Indigenous governance, and AI literacy. Each represented a domain where the region had existing depth, where the data and AI opportunity was concrete, and where at least some of the key organisations were already in the room.
The ocean and marine technology theme drew energy from participants with direct experience in defence, fisheries, and environmental monitoring. Health informatics generated significant discussion given the scale of the region's electronic health record infrastructure. Data sovereignty attracted strong engagement from Indigenous participants who saw an opportunity to shape, rather than react to, how AI development proceeded in the region. AI literacy surfaced as a cross-cutting priority, relevant across all sectors but particularly acute for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Barriers named and noted
The session produced one of the most direct conversations the process had generated about what was actually getting in the way. Data centre permitting timelines, which sometimes exceeded seven years, were cited repeatedly. Procurement cycles that outlasted the technologies they were meant to evaluate. A cultural bias toward risk avoidance in the public sector that made even low-stakes experimentation feel politically dangerous.
These were not abstract complaints. They were specific systemic patterns that a successful cluster initiative would need to address directly. That insight shaped the eventual design of DAVI's Barrier Reduction pillar.
Moving toward strategy
With the diagnostic work largely complete and barriers clearly named, the conditions were set for Roundtable 3 to shift from analysis to strategy. Read about Roundtable 3 to see how the process moved from insight to action.