New Zealand’s fight to attract the minds shaping the future in tech could have just become a bit harder.
China has a new visa that targets young STEM grads and foreign tech talent. The K visa doesn’t require a job offer.
It comes after the announcement that a similar US arrangement, the H-1B visa, now has a US$100,000 ($171,800) per year fee attached.
The K visa has been described as “boosting Beijing’s fortunes” in its geopolitical rivalry with Washington.
While Silicon Valley was once seen as the mecca for tech minds, its magnetism has diminished in recent times.
Victoria University of Wellington senior lecturer in artificial intelligence, Dr Andrew Lensen, told The Front Page that a lot of young, bright minds are now choosing places other than the US to realise their dreams.
“Ten or 15 years ago, everyone in my courses would be thinking about going to Google or Facebook, and I think for a lot of people it’s still that sort of Holy Grail.
“Somewhere like China, which probably is the second-closest in terms of the opportunities in that tech space, may be appealing to some.
“But, as we know, there are also a lot of people who don’t always agree with China’s views or their approach to things. It might attract some, but I’m not sure how impactful it will be in terms of, for example, people from New Zealand,” he said.
Lensen said that from his experience, the younger generation places a lot more weight on values.
“When I talk to students about AI, a lot of them have objections to how it’s used, how these big companies have forced it on us, and how it’s been deployed without looking at these environmental costs, these social costs.
“I think they are a lot more aware or put a lot more credibility towards those parts of the equation than perhaps we’re used to,” he said.
When it comes to where New Zealand sits as world powers lobby the next generation of tech talent, Lensen suggested a more considered approach.
“We’re small, and so it’s very hard for us to compete in terms of developing some of these products. We’re not gonna make our own ChatGPT, but at the same time, we could really do some cool stuff in terms of making AI trustworthy and showing the world how to do this the right way and in a way that puts people first.
“I think that is the opportunity we have as one of those moral leaders. So, on that basis, I think we certainly could be investing more, both financially in terms of attracting talent from overseas, but also in terms of educating our own population.
“Bringing up people from high school to university with those skills and investing in education so that we have homegrown talent as well. We’re never gonna be able to offer those salaries that you see, the millions of dollars you see elsewhere.
“But, we can offer a lifestyle and a way of doing things that is more aligned with views that people might hold,” he said.
Lensen said New Zealand could step out from the crowd when it comes to AI.
“That’s what we’ve done in the world before, right? When there was the nuclear-free movement, or when we gave universal suffrage so that women could vote, or even some of the stuff with the Christchurch Call.
“We’ve made those headlines and those impacts beyond our scale before. If we were purposeful about it, we too could say, ‘This is how we want to do AI in New Zealand’.
“I think that is not just the right thing to do, but also an opportunity to set ourselves apart economically as a provider of AI products and as a trustworthy place to do AI and get AI services from.
“It’s actually a gap in the market as well as an appealing prospect for a lot of younger people,” he said.
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The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.
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