SCX.ai Partners with Kereru.ai to Establish Sovereign AI Infrastructure for New Zealand

Australian AI infrastructure startup SCX.ai has announced a collaboration with newly formed Kiwi consortium Kereru.ai to build what they believe to be among the first AI platforms designed to be fully sovereign within New Zealand.

The partnership combines SCX's proven AI factory architecture, built around specialised inference accelerators, with Kererū.ai's local NZ ownership, governance, and delivery leadership. Together, the organisations will deliver a national AI platform designed to meet the need for AI users that want lower latency, are regulated to have in-country compute, have security or sovereignty concerns about hosting AI offshore, and who are seeking better value.

The Tech: Purpose Built AI Designed for Efficiency and Scale

SCX.ai's platform is a sovereign-by-design approach that prioritises operational control, sustainability, and long-term national benefit, delivering:

• 60-80% lower power consumption than GPU-based inference
• Predictable latency for production workloads
• Supports bringing AI to regional NZ

The platform deliberately separates training and inference, using GPUs where they excel and specialised ASICs where efficiency matters most. This enables AI to run alongside sensitive data and operational systems, supporting real-time decisions across government, research, financial services, and healthcare while maintaining residency, auditability, and compliance in-country.

This optimised architecture supports regional and distributed deployment models, allowing AI capability to extend beyond central data centres and into research institutions, regional hubs, and education facilities. At scale, the reduction in power demand equates to the electricity usage of tens of thousands of homes.

"We're proving you don't need massive GPU clusters to run world-class AI. Inference accounts for 60-80% of AI energy use, but GPUs typically run at under 30% utilisation during inference. That's a structural inefficiency we can fix with the right silicon."

— David Keane, CEO, SCX.ai

Project Kererū: A New Zealand Tailored Language Model

A central initiative of the partnership is Project Kererū, a sovereign New Zealand large language model program inspired by SCX.ai's Australian Project MAGPiE.

Project Kererū focuses on:

• New Zealand data, institutional language, and local terminology
• Sector-specific models for research, government, education, and regulated industries
• Culturally grounded applications, including support for Te Reo Māori

Project Kererū will run on in-country infrastructure, with strong governance, auditability, and safety controls appropriate for national deployment, while co-existing with the ability to run leading global models on the same platform.

Leadership Perspectives

"To truly thrive in the AI era, New Zealand must build infrastructure that is sovereign by design, energy-efficient, and tailored to our unique culture, language, and legal framework. We need solutions that are distinctly Kiwi and serve our national interests. This partnership accelerates Kereru AI to a leadership position delivering an innovative AI capability for New Zealand."

— Lyle Ginever, CEO, Kererū.ai

"We founded SCX.ai to prove that world-class AI doesn't require massive, monolithic GPU clouds. By combining purpose-built inference accelerators with sovereign governance, this partnership enables New Zealand to scale AI responsibly, efficiently, and with lasting control over its technology future."

— David Keane, CEO, SCX.ai

Availability

From Q1 2026, Kererū.ai customers will gain access to production-grade AI services delivered via SCX.ai's existing infrastructure, with progressive migration to fully New Zealand-based deployments during 2026 as local facilities are commissioned.

About SCX.ai

SCX.ai operates distributed AI infrastructure using specialised inference accelerators. Based in Sydney, the company focuses on sovereign AI solutions and culturally aligned language models including Project MAGPiE for Australian English.

About Kererū.ai

Kererū.ai is a majority New Zealand-owned consortium being established to deploy and operate sovereign AI infrastructure for New Zealand. The organisation is focused on delivering culturally aligned AI capability across research, education, government and regulated sectors.

Website: https://kereru.ai

Media Contact

Georgie Morell [email protected] 0438 008 383