Data Science and Artificial Intelligence in Australia: All 13 Ranked Universities, QS 2026 Data

Australia fields 13 ranked universities in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026 for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, placing it joint-third globally by number of ranked institutions. The country’s best entry is The University of Melbourne at rank 31, and five Australian universities sit inside the global top 50. There are no Australian institutions in the top 30 of this subject.

How Australia stacks up globally

The 2026 subject ranking covers 201 universities across 37 countries and regions. Australia’s 13 ranked institutions tie it with China (Mainland) for third place in the country leaderboard, behind the United States of America with 41 ranked institutions and the United Kingdom with 22. India and Spain each have 8, Canada, Italy, and Malaysia each have 7, and Hong Kong SAR, China has 6. Australia’s 13 entries place it clearly ahead of the next tier of countries, which cluster around 6 to 8 ranked institutions each.

The depth of the Australian field is notable: 9 of the 13 ranked universities fall within the global top 150, while the remaining 4 have a published rank band of 101-200 that straddles the top-150 boundary, so they can be counted neither inside nor outside the top 150. Four of them carry a published rank band of 101-200, which is not subdivided further, so their exact positions within that range are not published. A median rank cannot be computed for the Australian entries, because the institution at the median position has only a published rank range (51-100) rather than an exact rank. This is a compact, high-density national field rather than a long tail stretching toward the bottom of the global table.

The top tier: five universities inside the global top 50

Australia’s strongest block is the five universities ranked between 31 and 50. The University of Melbourne leads at rank 31, followed by four others in the 31–50 band. All five belong to the 31–50 rank band, and there are no Australian entries in the top 10, top 20, or top 30 bands. The country’s best result is therefore a strong top-tier presence without a global flagship at the very summit.

The score bands tell a similar story. One Australian university scores between 80 and 89, and four score between 70 and 79. The remaining eight ranked institutions have no published overall score; QS publishes an overall score only for a leading subset of ranked institutions, and a missing score does not mean the institution scored below any threshold or was dropped from the ranking. No Australian university with a published overall score reaches the 90-or-higher level, and the score bands cover only the institutions whose score was published. Among the 5 Australian institutions with a published overall score, the scores run from 76.3 to 80.6; the other 8 ranked institutions have no published overall score, so no distribution across the entire national field can be stated.

The middle tier: four universities in the 51–100 band

Four Australian universities are ranked between 51 and 100, extending the country’s top-100 total to nine. Combined with the five in the 31–50 band, this means 9 of Australia’s 13 ranked institutions are inside the global top 100. The remaining four have a published rank band of 101-200. There are no Australian entries ranked 151 or below.

The 51–100 band is where the national field’s density is most visible. These four universities, together with the five above them, create a continuous block of nine institutions all ranked within the top 100. For a reader comparing programs, this means that roughly two-thirds of Australia’s ranked options in this subject are globally top-100 institutions.

The bottom of the national field: four universities in the 101–200 band

The final four Australian ranked universities have a published rank band of 101-200. They complete the national picture: these four have a published rank band of 101-200, which straddles the top-150 boundary, so they can be counted neither inside nor outside the top 150. The lowest-ranked Australian entries have a published rank band of 101-200, so their exact positions are not published and no gap to the bottom of the global list can be stated.

The 101–200 band also marks the boundary of the country’s top-100 representation. Readers comparing the nine top-100 universities against the four with a published rank band of 101–200 should note that no score comparison between these groups can be made: among the 5 Australian institutions with a published overall score, the lowest is 76.3 and the highest is 80.6, while the other 8 ranked institutions have no published overall score. Among the 5 Australian institutions with a published overall score, the lowest is 76.3 and the highest is 80.6; the other 8 ranked institutions have no published overall score.

What the data means for program selection

For a reader who has already committed to Australia as a study destination, the key takeaway is that this subject offers a three-tier national structure. The top tier consists of five universities ranked 31–50, all scoring above 70. The middle tier is four universities ranked 51–100. The lower tier is four universities with a published rank band of 101–200; none of them has a published overall score.

The absence of any Australian institution in the global top 30 is worth noting. The country’s best-ranked university, The University of Melbourne, sits at rank 31 — just outside the top 30 band. This is not a gap in quality but a positioning fact: Australia’s strongest programs are competitive with the upper-middle of the global field rather than the very top.

The country’s 13 ranked institutions also tie it with China (Mainland) in the country leaderboard, with both countries fielding the same number of ranked universities. This parity is notable given the difference in population and research scale between the two systems. Australia’s 13 entries are concentrated in a narrow rank range, while China’s 13 may span a wider spread — though the data available here does not break down China’s individual ranks.

Subject Rank	Institution	Country/Region	Academic Reputation	Employer Reputation	Citations	Overall Score
31	The University of Melbourne	Australia	81	80.4	84.7	80.6
38	The University of Sydney	Australia	73.7	73.8	94.5	79
44	Australian National University (ANU)	Australia	74.8	72.8	92	77.2
45	University of Technology Sydney	Australia	71	69.5	96.2	76.9
48	Monash University	Australia	69	74	93.4	76.3
51-100	The University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney)	Australia	67.6	74.1	88.6	—
51-100	Adelaide University	Australia	64.5	66.2	97.2	—
51-100	RMIT University	Australia	68.9	69.2	83.8	—
51-100	The University of Queensland	Australia	64.4	68.7	89.5	—
101-200	Macquarie University (Sydney, Australia)	Australia	62.5	65.5	87.6	—
101-200	Deakin University	Australia	57.4	57.6	89.6	—
101-200	Queensland University of Technology (QUT)	Australia	63.8	52.6	84.9	—
101-200	The University of Western Australia	Australia	50.6	62.9	91.1	—

Country/Region	Ranked Institutions
United States of America	41
United Kingdom	22
China (Mainland)	13
Australia	13
India	8
Spain	8
Canada	7
Italy	7
Malaysia	7
Hong Kong SAR, China	6

Data notes

This article is based on the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026 for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, published by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), with a data reference date of 2026-04-03. The subject ranking is one of 60 separate subject tables produced by QS, and includes component scores for academic reputation, employer reputation, citations, H-index, and international research network.

The figures cited here were derived by parsing the subject table, filtering for institutions located in Australia, and taking the lower bound integer of each institution’s rank. The global ranking covers 201 universities across 37 countries and regions. The country leaderboard counts ranked institutions per country, and Australia’s 13 entries tie with China (Mainland) for third place.

Several limitations apply. The ranking only includes universities that QS evaluates for this subject; institutions not ranked are not counted. The rank bands (top 50, top 100, top 150) are based on the lower bound integer of each rank, so a university ranked at, for example, 51.0 is counted in the 51–100 band. The score bands reflect overall scores as published by QS, and the specific component scores (academic reputation, employer reputation, citations, H-index, international research network) for individual Australian universities are not broken out in this article. A median rank cannot be computed for the 13 Australian entries, because the institution at the median position has only a published rank range (51-100). No arithmetic beyond the published figures has been performed; all comparisons are stated qualitatively or by citing the original numbers side by side.