Griffin on Tech: Of kangaroos, cold showers, and farewells
It’s been one of those weeks in tech where the news cycle lurches from sobering to ridiculous, to inspiring. Don’t even get me started on Sam Altman’s plan to spend trillions blanketing the planet with data centres.
Across the Tasman, Australia has put its sovereign spin on generative AI. Back here at home, Spark NZ has given us a set of financial results that feel like a cold shower in July, while the local tech community prepares to farewell one of its stalwarts, Victoria MacLennan, as she hangs up her IT Professionals CEO badge and hits the road.
Matilda, the Aussie AI
Australia has never suffered from a lack of ambition. Whether it’s going big on quantum computing, or attempting to become a key player in the space industry, for a relatively small country it sets its ambitions high.
The latest example is “Matilda,” a large language model being trained by Australian firm Maincode with a distinctly sovereign twist: it’s based on Australian data.
The idea is simple: rather than relying on OpenAI, Google, or Anthropic, all US-based companies with priorities dictated by Silicon Valley venture capitalists and their lawyers, Australia wants an AI system that reflects its society, culture, laws, and norms.
Matilda, in theory, won’t confuse a “ute” with a pickup truck, or assume that cricket involves an insect. Most importantly, it’s about data sovereignty, keeping core national infrastructure, in this case AI capability, at home rather than dependent on a handful of American or Chinese giants. To be clear, this is a private enterprise, not a Government-funded and controlled effort. That’s a good thing, allowing the project to proceed at pace and to focus on the needs of Australian organisations looking for a solid alternative to Big AI. There’s room for a government version too, making sure there’s no digital divide when it comes to AI.
Sovereign AI isn’t just about patriotism; it’s about resiliency. Large language models trained on curated national datasets are less likely to hallucinate away local nuance. That matters when you’re building services for financial services, health, education, or government services. It also means your dollars aren’t simply flowing offshore in cloud API fees.
Still, it raises questions. How “Australian” will Matilda really be if she’s trained on data scraped from global sources as well? Can Maincode keep pace with the staggering compute requirements needed to remain competitive with the likes of GPT‑5 or Google’s Gemini? And perhaps most crucially, what does “sovereign AI” mean for us in New Zealand, where the conversation has been muted at best?
Are we comfortable outsourcing much of our AI future to foreign firms, or is there a case for our own homegrown Kiwi model, one trained on the Treaty, Te Reo, dairy yield forecasts, and the collected works of the Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand?
Apparently there are some nascent efforts underway already here, minus the billionaire backer that Matilda has in the form of Ed Craven, the founder of online casino and sports betting operator Stake.com.
But if the Aussies are putting Matilda centre stage, what’s our equivalent? (Pōhutukawa? Tūī? KiwiGPT?) The point is: this is a conversation we should be having, quickly.
Spark’s stormy weather
From vision to survival. Spark NZ’s results this week were, well, brutal. Profits down, revenue pressures rising, and most eye‑catching of all, 1,200 roles cut over the last twelve months — roughly 20% of its workforce.
It follows news last week that Spark is selling a 75% stake in its data centres, using the proceeds to pay down debt. There are reasons, of course.
Like almost every telco in the region, Spark has faced inflationary pressures, a consumer slowdown, and the never‑ending demand to reinvest in infrastructure. But the scale of the cuts is hard to ignore. It speaks to a wider reckoning in tech, here and abroad, where the once‑supercharged pandemic demand curve has flattened, and companies are realising they can’t just cut‑and‑paste Silicon Valley growth expectations onto little old New Zealand.
The irony is that Spark, more than any other corporate, has tried to reposition itself as a digital services player, tipping investments into data centres, AI and data analytics, IoT, health tech and cloud, while shedding the skin of “just a telco.” But the financials remind us how brutally hard that transformation is, particularly in a market of five million people, most of whom are more preoccupied with their grocery bills than their edge‑compute strategy.
Still, these are the moments where companies reset. Spark has weathered transformations before, remember when it ditched the Telecom name and was forced into structural separation and spun out Chorus? This is another of those pivots. But if you’re among the 1,200 now hunting roles, the big picture is cold comfort.
Farewell to a tireless tech leader
And then to Victoria MacLennan, who is stepping down as CEO of IT Professionals NZ. After three and a half years at the helm, she’s hit pause on steering the profession’s main membership body and opted for a season of travel.
Victoria has been one of the more vocal champions of tech as a diverse and vibrant industry in Aotearoa. Under her tenure, ITP has shifted its reputation from being the preserve of guys who collect Microsoft certifications, to a broader voice for professionalism, education, ethics, and policy. She’s also been a constant presence in the corridors of government, making sure tech policy wasn’t written solely by lobbyists or offshore corporates.
If Matilda is about sovereignty and Spark is about survival, Victoria’s story is about stewardship. One of her great themes has always been that tech isn’t just about code or networks, it’s people and professions. And she’s been relentless about lifting standards, creating pathways, and making sure the industry grows sustainably rather than haphazardly.
She’ll be missed, but, as Vic told me in her exit interview, she’ll be back, possibly with an even bigger vision to share once she’s clocked up a few airpoints. If anyone deserves a sabbatical, it’s Vic.
