Auckland Tech Council

Aotearoa New Zealand needs Auckland. As New Zealand’s most populous and most diverse city, and the place where the largest proportion of immigrants land and tourists enter, a successful Auckland provides opportunities for all New Zealanders. Auckland is New Zealand’s economic powerhouse, and it’s crucial for future prosperity that Auckland is a thriving and connected global city.

Technology is a growing sector in New Zealand. It underpins the growth, development, and sustainability of many other large sectors, including agritech, cleantech, and sustainable transportation. The breadth of the technology sector creates significant opportunities across all New Zealand.

Auckland has a set of unique attributes including population, access to education and talent, agglomeration of key business communities and global connectivity that align to three key sectors, CreativeTech, FinTech and HealthTech, that we’ve identified where Auckland is particularly well-suited to take the lead within New Zealand and to become a globally recognised technology hub. These sectors all have strong international growth potential.

Conversely, there are other cities across the country that have a unique set of attributes that allow them to take a leadership role in the creation of new technology hubs. When taking a closer look at world-class technology hubs in cities across the globe, there is a clear and deliberate set of choices and focus. This report creates an aspiration for Auckland built on these three sectors where Auckland can compete and win globally. We encourage central government, local government and Auckland businesses to demonstrate leadership and to support the growth of these. Intent and action will transform Auckland into a global technology hub built around CreativeTech, FinTech and HealthTech.

Our intention is to spur commitment from central and local government, from the private sector and the wider community to a joint ambition to make Auckland an even greater place to live, work and play, to drive New Zealand’s economic growth, and to join other global tech hubs as a recognised city of innovation in the near future.

This report has been written and sponsored by Auckland Business Chamber members from across the technology sector who are deeply committed to the success of Auckland and New Zealand as a tech hub. Auckland businesses are ready to drive this agenda. What is required is a set of enablers, powered by central and local government to achieve tech hub status.