Sovereign AI is about keeping control over our future.
Tino rangatiratanga mō tātou, ā, mō ngā uri ā muri ake nei
The ability to create and control our destiny for generations to come.
These principles are a localised version of the international Indigenous AI Sovereign principles.
Pou 1. Data sovereignty and Data Governance: Our data, our protocols. Control over data creation, access, and use. Our AI must be built upon tikanga and mātauranga using intergenerational consent and values, not just western ethics.
Pou 2. Control over infrastructure and code: If we don’t own it, we don’t control it. From code and algorithms to servers and models, infrastructure and models must be built and operated under rangatiratanga.
Pou 3. Skilled workforces: Rather than relying on external agencies, governments and external countries, Māori need to be able to leverage their own skilled workforce to deploy AI agents and models, and innovate new solutions. This often means upskilling professionals with AI and machine learning (ML) education or encouraging students to pursue careers in the industry.
Pou 4. Economic Reinvestment: Redirecting digital value to strengthen the Māori economy and uplift more Māori into well paying tech jobs.
Pou 5. Investment in innovation: Iwi, hapū, marae and Māori organisations need to be committed to investing in their own AI initiatives. Building sovereign AI means supporting local talent to fund state of the art research tailored to unique challenges and intergenerational wealth and knowledge preservation.