Australia could face economic chaos if the nation doesn’t harness locally-held artificial intelligence, experts warn, amid further calls to bolster our manufacturing capacity. Now the local steel industry is under immense pressure at the same time as experts plead for Australia to get its own slice of the tech boom. But work has dried up in the past 18 months as cheap prefabricated steel products from overseas flood into Australia. The irony is the key ingredient in steel is iron ore. Australia exports 900 million tonnes of it annually, more than half the world’s supply. The concern is if local steel production and manufacturing closes in favour of cheaper overseas products, what happens if that foreign supply suddenly stops?