Essays

National Ambition: The Choices That Will Shape New Zealand

The choices we make now will shape what New Zealand can build by 2034 - and what we build by 2034 will shape what becomes possible next.

The future is shaped by the choices we carve now.

New Zealand is making choices about its future right now.

Some are obvious: decisions about infrastructure, energy, research, investment, skills and technology. Others happen more quietly through the companies we support, the things we choose to build here, the talent we develop, the ideas we back and the opportunities we allow to pass us by.

And some choices happen by default, simply because we don't make them.

We can deliberately decide what kind of country we want to become, or we can drift into whatever role the changing global economy leaves for us.

That distinction has been on my mind a lot recently. At the Aotearoa AI Summit, Datacom Group CEO Greg Davidson spoke about the strategic choices shaping New Zealand's AI future, including where we want to build capability and advantage.

AI and advanced technology are changing what countries, companies and individuals can do. New industries are forming and existing industries are being reshaped. Around the world, major decisions and investments are being made now in AI, infrastructure, energy, computing, research and skills.

New Zealand will participate in that future one way or another. The question is how.

For me, the starting point isn't the technology. It's people and purpose.

What companies do we want people to be able to build from New Zealand? What kinds of work do we want people to be able to do here? What expertise do we want to become known for?

Can someone develop deep skills overseas and come home to opportunities worthy of them? Can a scientist working on something important in a New Zealand university see a credible path from research to a product, a company or an industry? Can someone start an ambitious company here and keep growing it from here?

And what opportunities do we want our children to inherit?

These questions tell us much more about national ambition than any particular technology does.

Technology changes what becomes possible. People decide what we do with that possibility.

2034 is a checkpoint, not the destination

The Government has set a demanding economic target: double the value of New Zealand's exports by 2034, to around $190 billion a year. That is useful. It gives us something concrete to work towards and a point in time at which we can measure progress.

Food and fibre will remain enormously important. Tourism and international education will contribute. Our established exporters will continue to grow and change.

But some of the value New Zealand creates in 2034 will also come from areas that are relatively small today: software and AI-enabled products, advanced manufacturing, aerospace, medtech and health technology, biotechnology, and new applications of energy, engineering and science.

Some will come from companies and industries we cannot clearly see yet.

That is why I think of 2034 as a checkpoint rather than the destination. The export target tells us something important about the scale of the challenge, but it doesn't tell us what kind of New Zealand we should build on the way there, or what shape the country should be in when we arrive.

We can hit the target and still miss the opportunity.

That is the part of the 2034 conversation I find most interesting.

Does the pathway add up?

I started exploring the 2034 target by asking a fairly literal question: does it add up?

If we put New Zealand's different sector ambitions alongside one another, do they form a credible path towards the national target?

That question is worth asking, and I have been exploring the detail behind it through ChartingTheBlank's /2034 National Ambition inquiry.

But the more I have looked at it, the more interesting the question has become.

Eventually, Does it add up? stops being about arithmetic. It becomes a question about the pathway underneath the number.

Where will the additional value actually come from? How will new ideas become businesses, and research find its way into industry? How will small companies become larger companies, and established companies become more productive and create more valuable products and services?

Where will those businesses find the skills, energy, capital, infrastructure and customers they need? And will those things be available when the opportunity is ready?

New Zealand already has many of the ingredients. We have smart people, deep talent and expertise, good research, strong companies and entrepreneurs. We have renewable energy, international relationships, capital, universities and research institutions, public agencies working on important parts of the problem, and a growing technology sector.

There is a lot of good activity underway. The risk is that we agree on many of the right things, but continue to build them separately.

The pieces matter. What they can do together matters more.

The practical question is whether people and companies can actually find the skills, capital, infrastructure, expertise and connections they need as an idea moves from one stage to the next.

A founder shouldn't need to understand how every agency, fund, research institution, infrastructure provider or programme is organised.

From their perspective, the question is much simpler:

Can I find what I need to keep moving?

Can a good idea go all the way?

Take a promising New Zealand idea.

Perhaps it starts with a researcher who discovers something genuinely useful, a founder who sees a problem differently, or an engineer who realises a new technology makes something possible that wasn't practical five years ago.

Getting the idea started is one challenge. What comes afterwards is another.

Can they prove it works and find their first customers? Can they find people with the right skills, protect what they have created and raise enough capital? If manufacturing is required, can they make it? Can they navigate regulation and enter international markets?

And if it starts working, can they keep growing?

We talk a lot about startups, and rightly so. But a startup is a stage, not the destination.

The goal isn't simply more startups. It's more companies that can keep growing from here.

The needs of a company change dramatically as it grows. An early-stage business might need a founder, a small team, some initial capital and room to experiment. A company selling internationally may suddenly need experienced leaders, specialist engineers, regulatory expertise, much larger amounts of capital, sophisticated systems, manufacturing partners and people who understand how to operate across multiple markets.

At some point the question changes from Can we build the product? to something much bigger:

Can we build the organisation capable of delivering the ambition?

That is where the national and organisational stories begin to meet.

A country doesn't become stronger simply because it has infrastructure, builds data centres or funds programmes. Those things matter because of what people and organisations become able to do with them.

An engineering team learns how to manufacture something no New Zealand company had manufactured before. A leadership team learns how to take a product into ten countries. A scientist learns how to work effectively with industry. A local supplier develops new expertise because a customer needed it.

Someone who helped build one successful company joins the next one. An experienced founder becomes an investor or mentor. A person who developed expertise overseas comes home because there is now something ambitious enough to come home for.

This is how one success can make the next one easier. The next founder knows someone who has done it before. The next manufacturer has already solved part of the problem. The next investor has more experience. The next team starts a little further ahead.

It can be difficult to see that progress in a headline number.

But it changes what New Zealand is able to do.

The right things. For the right reasons. At the right time.

There is another part of this that I think we underestimate: timing.

Having the right things somewhere in New Zealand is not enough. They need to be available when someone needs them.

Imagine a New Zealand company has developed a product that suddenly finds an international market. It needs growth capital now. It needs experienced leadership now. It may need specialist engineering or manufacturing capacity, more electricity, data infrastructure, regulatory support or an international partner now.

If those things become available three years later, we may still be able to say New Zealand has them.

But the opportunity may have moved on.

The company may have shifted more of itself overseas. The people may have gone with it. The investment may have been made somewhere else. The customer may have chosen somebody else.

The right thing arriving too late can still mean a missed opportunity.

You can see versions of this in many places. Research reaches maturity before there is a good path into industry. A company is ready to scale before enough capital is available. Industrial demand appears before the energy or infrastructure required to support it. A major technology investment is made before the organisation around it is ready to use it well.

Or several good programmes are created independently, each doing something sensible, but the connections between them are weak.

In organisational transformation I sometimes describe the challenge very simply:

The right projects. For the right reasons. At the right time.

There is a national version of the same idea.

Are we investing in the things that matter? Do they serve the New Zealand we actually want to build? Are we getting the sequence right so one thing is ready when another depends on it?

This doesn't mean everything needs to be directed from central government. It shouldn't be. Businesses, communities, investors, researchers, institutions and individuals will all make their own choices and see opportunities differently.

But we can become much better at seeing how those choices fit together, where important gaps are emerging, and where one part of the country is waiting for another before something can move.

The aim isn't one centrally controlled system.

It is a country that gets better at bringing the right things together when it matters.

Imagine two New Zealands in 2034

Now imagine two New Zealands arriving in 2034.

Both have reached roughly $190 billion of exports. On paper, both have succeeded.

But they are very different countries.

In the first New Zealand, imagine that exports have grown strongly. Existing sectors have had good years, some new companies have succeeded, international investment has arrived and new technologies have been adopted.

The number adds up.

But look underneath it and what remains is much weaker.

Some of its most successful companies have moved much of their senior talent, intellectual property or important operations offshore as they grew. Researchers still struggle to find a route from a good idea into industry. Companies reaching the next stage of growth still encounter the same gaps in capital and specialist skills.

It buys many of the technologies reshaping its economy, but creates relatively little new value around them here. Suppliers remain small and fragmented. Infrastructure built for one opportunity does little for the next. People gain valuable experience, but much of it leaves with them.

Another promising company arrives and has to recreate many of the same relationships and solve many of the same problems again.

New Zealand has hit the target.

But the next opportunity still starts from much the same place.

Now imagine the second New Zealand.

It reaches the same $190 billion.

But the journey to 2034 has been very different.

More New Zealand companies have learned how to grow internationally while keeping important parts of what they do here. More research has found its way into products and businesses. More founders have made the difficult journey from startup to scale-up and can now help others do it.

Engineers and manufacturers have developed deeper skills because companies here asked them to solve harder problems. People have built internationally relevant careers here. Those who spent time overseas have more reasons to return.

Investors who backed successful businesses now have capital and experience to invest again. Infrastructure created for one opportunity is helping another company move faster. Relationships between researchers, companies, investors, government and industry are easier to form because people have travelled those paths before.

The next ambitious company doesn't start from zero.

The export number is the same.

Same target. Different New Zealand.

And the difference becomes even more important as we enter 2035.

One country has reached the number.

The other has reached the number and created a stronger starting point for whatever comes next.

That is why how we get to 2034 matters as much as whether we get there.

How do we know which New Zealand we're building?

If those two futures are possible, there is an obvious question: which one are we building?

We shouldn't have to wait until 2034 to find out.

We should be able to see signs along the way. Are more promising ideas making the journey from research into practical use? Are more New Zealand companies getting through the difficult stage between startup and international scale? Are people developing deeper expertise here, and are experienced New Zealanders finding worthwhile reasons to come home?

Are growing companies finding capital when they need it? Are manufacturers, engineers and suppliers being asked to do more difficult and valuable work? Are organisations getting better at adopting new technology and changing how they work around what it makes possible?

Are investments in energy, digital infrastructure and other foundations opening up new things people can build? When something succeeds, does the next person or company get to begin a little further ahead?

None of those questions provides a perfect measure. That isn't the point.

The point is to see whether the country underneath the headline number is getting stronger while we still have time to influence it.

We should know before 2034 which New Zealand we are building.

The /2034 environment on ChartingTheBlank goes much further into the numbers, sector ambitions, evidence, assumptions and the different areas we may need to strengthen.

I don't expect every answer to be clear. Some of the opportunities that matter most in 2034 may barely exist today.

But tracking those signs along the way gives us a better chance of seeing where things are connecting, where they aren't, and where something important may be arriving too late.

It lets us ask a more useful question than simply Are we on track for the number?

Are we making it easier to build what comes next?

The choices we make now

There will never be one national master plan that tells New Zealand exactly what to build. Nor should there be.

Some of our biggest future opportunities will emerge from founders, scientists, companies and communities pursuing ideas nobody in government or industry could have planned in advance.

National ambition isn't about predicting all of them. It's about creating a country where more good ideas have somewhere to go.

A country where an ambitious company has a credible path from here to the world. Where people can build deep expertise and interesting careers. Where research can become something useful. Where technology helps our existing industries become substantially better and enables new ones to emerge.

Where an investment made for one opportunity leaves something useful for the next.

And where we become better at bringing the right things together at the right moment.

AI and advanced technology are an important part of this story. They are opening new possibilities for countries and companies around the world, and I think there is a meaningful window now while many parts of the emerging global AI economy are still taking shape.

Over time, infrastructure will be built, investment will begin to settle around particular places and companies, supply chains and platforms will mature, skills will cluster, and standards and relationships will become more established. Some of those opportunities will be national, others global. And some that are open now may then become harder to enter, influence or recreate after the fact.

That doesn't mean we need to rush after every new technology.

For me, that means the choices we make over the next few years carry unusual weight.

Choosing not to make them is still a choice.

AI and advanced technology can expand the range of things New Zealand is able to do, but they aren't the purpose.

The purpose is a stronger New Zealand with more choices.

More choices about the companies people can build and grow here. More choices about the work people can do and the expertise they can develop. More choices about where New Zealand creates value in the world. More choices for our communities, and more choices for the generations coming after us.

2034 gives us a useful marker on the horizon. When we reach it, we can count the exports.

But for me, the more important test is what happens next.

When the next researcher has a promising idea, do they still have to build the path into industry from scratch? When the next company is ready to scale, are the same gaps waiting for it? When the next major opportunity arrives, are more of the people, expertise, infrastructure and relationships already there to help it move?

The real test is whether the next opportunity gets to start further ahead.

Did we simply reach the target, or did we build a stronger foundation that lets the next cycle start further ahead?

We can deliberately choose what we want New Zealand to become, or we can drift into whatever comes next.

The choices we make now will shape which New Zealand arrives in 2034 - and what we build by 2034 will become the foundation for what becomes possible next.