AARnet (Australian academic research network) was an Australian national computer network initially created between educational facilities such as the Australian National University in Canberra and Melbourne University in Melbourne. AARnet was formed in 1988 by the Australian Vice-Chancellor's Committee (AVCC).

Until this time, researchers within Australia had limited access to the ARPAnet, due to the high expense of providing communications between Australia and the United States. The national ARPAnet infrastructure generally consisted of groups of UUCP hosts throughout the country exchanging mail on a periodic schedule, with several international dial-up links around the country exchanging this information where required.

AARNet was engineered to use only the Internet Protocol (IP) for communications. In 1988, there were a number of popular network protocols, such as IBM SNA and X.25, and the ARPANet's IP protocol was only beginning to become favoured. An Australian National University faculty member, Geoff Huston , was seconded by the AVCC in 1989 and tasked with technical management of the new network.

AARnet sold their national IP backbone in Australia to Telstra in 1995, who currently operates it under the name Telstra Internet.