Datacentres New Zealand launches 2026 Election Manifesto to grow productivity, jobs and a new export sector
Datacentres New Zealand today launched its 2026 Election Manifesto: Empowering Aotearoa New Zealand’s Digital Future, setting out a policy agenda to help New Zealand capture the generational opportunity in trusted, sustainable data processing, storage and AI infrastructure.
Datacentres are the backbone of digital services that empower the daily lives of every New Zealander — from essential government functions and health systems, to online banking, e-commerce and AI-powered tools. The manifesto states the sector’s growth is not just important, but central to Aotearoa New Zealand’s future prosperity and global competitiveness.
With global demand accelerating for secure, low‑carbon digital infrastructure, especially for AI and cloud services, New Zealand is well positioned to become a regional hub for sustainable digital services and exports.
“Datacentres are the core of our modern digital lives and economy, underpinning everyday tasks and essential services, while enabling the economic opportunities offered by AI,” says Graeme Muller, CEO, Tech New Zealand.
“This manifesto sets out what New Zealand needs to do now to enable investment, build capability, and ensure the benefits flow across the country.”
The manifesto highlights the scale and contribution of the sector: 56 datacentres currently operate across New Zealand, with another 20 planned, supporting $16.5 billion in ICT sector GDP and enabling a further $76.5 billion in knowledge‑intensive services across the economy.
The sector is a powerful engine for high‑value job creation, supporting 6,800 datacentre‑related jobs in 2025, and thousands more roles across construction, technology and service providers nationwide.
New Zealand’s datacentre sector is also highly efficient: 54% more efficient than individual businesses running their own servers, and using only 0.6% of New Zealand’s electricity in 2025 — consuming less power than government offices.
“New Zealand’s digital future depends on resilient, efficient infrastructure and datacentres are foundational,” says Graeme.
“This manifesto is a practical contribution to the 2026 election conversation: it sets out the opportunity, the barriers holding us back, and the priorities needed to lift productivity, grow skills and unlock new export growth.”
The manifesto outlines a clear opportunity for New Zealand across three fronts:
- Productivity growth and economic development
The sector brings direct private investment, high‑value jobs, and digital skills, and underpins economic growth as New Zealand becomes more digital — lifting productivity. - Export growth
With proactive energy management, New Zealand can strengthen its standing as a trusted regional hub for sustainable digital services and tech exports, with the opportunity to develop AI processing and trusted data storage as a new export sector. - Sustainability
New Zealand datacentres offer a genuine low‑carbon solution for digital operations.
The manifesto identifies key barriers that must be addressed to unlock the opportunity, including:
- No clear plan or sector strategy in place
- Lack of international awareness
- Uncoordinated infrastructure and grid planning
- Misinformation leading to poor public perceptions
- High construction costs and slow consenting
- Slow uptake of cloud and AI throughout the economy
To unlock the opportunity at pace, Datacentres New Zealand is calling for coordinated action across sixnational priorities:
- National Datacentre Strategy
The opportunity is massive, but accessing it will require coordination between datacentre companies, the electricity market, regional bodies and government agencies. A co‑designed national datacentre strategy is needed to provide vision, alignment and investment direction. - Promote New Zealand as a trusted, sustainable datacentre hub
Global demand for AI infrastructure will continue to grow. To be considered a reasonable hub for some of this infrastructure, a clear message must be sent to the world. The government can show leadership and invest in promoting New Zealand as a trusted, sustainable site for AI infrastructure investment, creating a new export industry. - Coordinated infrastructure and grid planning
Lack of coordination among datacentre operators and power companies leads to uneven distribution grid demands, with some areas facing high demand while others see little investment. A formal grid planning structure that aggregates the datacentre and electricity sectors is needed for effective infrastructure development. - Improve public awareness
Industry and government must work hard to bring the public on the journey, producing local evidence to reduce the ongoing extrapolation of irrelevant US market facts by commentators. - Low‑carbon compute certification
Develop an internationally recognised certification for compute from New Zealand to establish the zero‑ or low‑carbon credentials of our compute for overseas buyers. - Lift AI and cloud usage
Increasing the use and uptake of AI and cloud services across the economy will lift productivity and provide stable domestic demand for local datacentres.
With $10 billion in datacentre investment forecast over the next decade, Datacentres New Zealand says coordinated action now will help position New Zealand at the forefront of trusted, sustainable data processing, storage and AI infrastructure.