ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr presented the Pearcey Foundation ACT Chief Minister’s Entrepreneur Award to Trellis Data founders Rachel and Michael Gately. Photo: Andrew Barr/LinkedIn.
The Canberra innovators who created tech solutions to rival Microsoft, Google and Amazon have received the ACT’s premier regional tech-entrepreneurship accolade.
Trellis Data co-founders Rachel and Michael Gately were presented with the 2026 ACT Chief Minister’s Pearcey Entrepreneur Award by the Pearcey Foundation in recognition of their major contribution to the Australian ICT industry, particularly in building Australia’s sovereign AI capability.
The husband-and-wife team established Trellis Data in Canberra in 2016 to address a major market vulnerability: the reliance of Australian government, defence and enterprise organisations on foreign, cloud-dependent AI platforms that compromise data sovereignty, privacy and operational security.
The Gatelys set out to build a secure, fully sovereign platform to support a wide range of data sources and machine learning models. It would compete directly with tech behemoths like Microsoft, Google and Amazon.
“Trellis Data has the talent and the ability, and it would just be an opportunity missed for Australia for us not to devote our time and resources and efforts to create a truly sovereign AI capability,” Rachel said.
“It’s been our vision from the start to build those high-security sovereign AI solutions. We’ve really believed that it’s something Australia needed, and believed that Australia would back us in those endeavours.
“We can see a future where Canberra is a technology hub, but not just that, we see it as a place where top talent congregates to solve the hard problems.”
After 10 years, Trellis Data now stands as a flagship Australian AI success story.
The company created one of the world’s fastest speech-to-text and translation algorithms, capable of operating in air-gapped, high-security environments.
Earlier this year, Trellis Data also launched Agentaus, a publicly accessible, fully sovereign, defence-grade AI platform where all model inference, data storage and processing occur within secure Australian data centres.
Today, Trellis Data provides critical capability that ensures sensitive national security, intelligence and health data remain fully protected on home soil.
However, taking on global giants was not without massive operational and capital challenges.
The Gatelys had to develop proprietary neural network architectures from scratch, convince risk-averse public sector buyers to adopt local deep-tech solutions and recruit top-tier machine learning engineers from Canberra’s highly competitive talent market.
They also had to fund aggressive R&D cycles while maintaining strict compliance with stringent government security accreditations.
ACT Pearcey Foundation Chair Dr Tim Turner highlighted the courage it took for the Gatelys to commit their personal and financial capital to challenge global tech titans.
“They chose to fund independent proprietary development rather than building wrappers around international AI models, so that public sector agencies can safely leverage AI without compromising security,” he said.
“Most importantly, Rachel and Michael have shown us that world-class AI software can be conceptualised, built, and commercially scaled out of Canberra. Their success offers a powerful example for other Australian technology founders pursuing high-growth deep-tech models.”
Today, the company boasts a compound annual revenue growth rate of over 100 per cent, rapid expansion into international markets like the United States, and widespread deployment across major Australian federal departments, law enforcement agencies and defence programs.
The Pearcey Award acknowledges individuals who demonstrate outstanding innovation, success and leadership in ICT entrepreneurship, celebrating local achievement while bolstering Canberra’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.
“This was an incredible recognition of the work we’ve achieved to date, and it felt like a clear affirmation that what we’re doing at Trellis Data is making a tangible difference,” Rachel said.
Rachel and Michael Gately will represent the Territory at the national Pearcey Awards in November.
