Sovereign AI refers to a nation's capability to develop, manage, and utilise artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in alignment with its own values, regulations, and interests, ensuring digital sovereignty and security.

This concept is gaining prominence as AI transforms various aspects of human society, including the economy, health, education, security, and culture.

Nations are investing heavily in building their own AI capabilities and ecosystems to gain global competitive advantages and strategic influence.

For New Zealand, the importance of Sovereign AI lies in several key areas:

1. Economic and Social Development: Sovereign AI can drive innovation, productivity, and economic growth. By developing homegrown AI solutions, New Zealand can enhance its competitiveness in the global market. This includes creating new business models, optimising processes, and generating valuable insights across various sectors.

2. National Security and Defense: Sovereign AI plays a crucial role in national security and defense, enabling New Zealand to protect its digital infrastructure and data against threats and vulnerabilities. This includes the development of AI technologies for surveillance, cybersecurity, and defense applications, ensuring the country's safety and sovereignty.

3. Ethical and Cultural Alignment: Sovereign AI allows New Zealand to shape and govern AI technologies according to its unique vision, values, and ethical standards. This is particularly important in a country like New Zealand, where there is a strong emphasis on respecting the Treaty of Waitangi and ensuring that AI technologies are developed and used in ways that are beneficial and respectful to all New Zealanders, including Māori.

4. Data Sovereignty and Privacy: With the increasing importance of data in the digital economy, Sovereign AI ensures that New Zealand has control over its data. This includes the ability to protect personal information, intellectual property, and other sensitive data from unauthorised access or exploitation, in compliance with national data protection laws and regulations.

5. International Collaboration and Standards: By developing Sovereign AI capabilities, New Zealand can contribute to and influence the formation of international AI standards and norms. This includes participating more in global partnerships and coalitions, such as the Global Partnership on AI, to promote interoperability, accountability, and sustainability in AI technologies.

6. Innovation and Workforce Development: Investing in Sovereign AI can spur innovation and foster the development of a skilled workforce in New Zealand. This includes education and training programs in AI and related fields, creating opportunities for New Zealanders to participate in the AI-driven economy.

Sovereign AI is crucial for New Zealand as it offers a pathway to harness the benefits of AI technologies while ensuring they align with the country's values, regulations, and interests.

It supports economic growth, national security, ethical development, data sovereignty, international collaboration, and workforce development, positioning New Zealand as a leader in ethical and innovative AI development on the global stage.

Interestingly, global heavyweights Oracle and NVIDIA have announced their expanded collaboration to deliver sovereign AI solutions worldwide.

The collaboration between Oracle and NVIDIA is not just about enhancing AI capabilities; it's about ensuring that these advancements are accessible and beneficial to all sectors of New Zealand's economy.

By leveraging Oracle's distributed cloud, AI infrastructure, and generative AI services alongside NVIDIA's accelerated computing and generative AI software, this partnership aims to establish AI factories. These factories are envisioned to run cloud services locally, within a nation's or organisation's secure premises, thus supporting sovereign objectives of diversifying and enhancing economic growth.

Transparency: this article was written by Justin Flitter, enhanced in Perplexity, then edited and reviewed by before publishing.