Māori Data Sovereignty and the Future of AI in Aotearoa
Full Show Notes: https://www.theintelligenceagepodcast.com/848
Mark Smith talks with Lee Timutimu, a Māori technology leader and entrepreneur, about AI literacy, Māori digital equity and data sovereignty. Lee reflects on building Tuhi, a Māori-created AI scribe for Health New Zealand, and the challenges of working with a government agency. They discuss sovereign AI and cloud infrastructure, the potential for community-owned digital hubs, and how to support Māori communities to shape AI’s future.
Key topics and takeaways
AI literacy and inclusion: Lee sees a persistent gap in foundational AI knowledge and describes Māori AI Wānanga as a way for Māori practitioners to collaborate on a vision that can support communities.
Building Tuhi: Lee shares the story of developing a Māori-created AI scribe for Health New Zealand, including the importance of trusted, reciprocal partnerships and the difficult lessons of the engagement.
Māori data sovereignty: The conversation explores who controls sensitive data, where it is stored, and why local hosting alone does not necessarily mean a community has control.
Sovereign infrastructure: Lee expects more interest in sovereign cloud, open-weight models and locally controlled AI infrastructure.
Community digital hubs: Mark and Lee discuss the potential for marae-based hubs and connected local data centres to support digital access, enterprise and resilience.
Looking ahead: Lee plans to publish a community vision statement, pursue PhD research on AI, and continue work on an agentic AI delivery platform.
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Thanks for listening 🚀 – Mark Smith
00:00 Intro
00:25 Welcome and introductions
01:01 Food, whānau and community service
03:37 Lee’s view of AI’s rapid shift
04:13 AI literacy and Māori communities
05:47 Māori AI Wānanga and a community vision
08:20 Tuhi, the Māori-created AI scribe
09:25 Partnerships and lessons from Health New Zealand
10:48 Lee’s work in insurance and agentic AI
12:26 Who controls healthcare data?
14:58 Lessons from building Tuhi
18:09 Testing Tuhi and Māori data sovereignty
21:39 Building trust and protecting sensitive information
25:47 Resilience, pivoting and the Māori digital equity claim
30:16 Sovereign AI, open-weight models and local infrastructure
32:08 Community-owned micro data centres
35:08 Marae as digital hubs
38:57 Lee’s priorities and plans for 2027
41:18 PhD research and upcoming work
44:01 Closing thoughts