With our Security Forum just three weeks away, this month's Lookout considers some of the tensions shaping New Zealand's future: the growing overlap between economic and national security, AI's potential to accelerate scientific discovery, and how the next generation of leaders is approaching decision making in the age of AI.
These developments raise difficult questions. How do we strengthen our security without compromising the international connections on which our prosperity depends? And how do we balance the risks of new technology against the opportunities we might miss?
Global Affairs: National security, beyond defence
Critical Conversations: AI for discovery
Connected Communities: Decision making in an age of AI
We'll be exploring these questions and more at our Security Forum next month (limited places remaining), alongside leaders from business, government, defence and technology across New Zealand and internationally.
We hope you enjoy this edition.
Ngā mihi - Christine and the Aspen Institute NZ team
Global Affairs
National security, beyond defence
New Zealand's prosperity depends on an international system and rules-based order over which we have limited control. As geopolitical competition extends into trade, technology and critical infrastructure, questions of economic security are becoming harder to separate from national security.
The latest NZSIS Security Threat Environment report examines the threats facing New Zealand in an increasingly contested world. NCSC's newly released Cyber Threat Report 2026 puts a business lens on the same problem, warning that frontier AI is now supercharging cyber threats to New Zealand businesses and organisations, with a reported 18% rise last year in incidents classified as potentially nationally significant.
How much should New Zealand invest in greater resilience, and where should responsibility lie between government and business?
These questions will feature prominently at our October Security Forum, alongside the wider connections between economic security, technology, defence and infrastructure.
Critical Conversations
AI for Discovery: What could AI make possible?
While much of the current debate about AI focuses on its risks and regulation, its potential to transform scientific discovery deserves equal attention.
A new report from the Aspen Institute's Science & Society Program explores how AI's could accelerate research across biodiversity, climate science, genomics and neuroscience.
Drawing on discussions with leading researchers, AI for Discoveryexamines how AI could uncover patterns in complex data, generate new hypotheses and accelerate experiments. It also highlights the importance of reliable data, scientific expertise and rigorous validation.
For New Zealand, the report raises an interesting question: how can a smaller economy take advantage of these advances, and what investment, partnerships and scientific capabilities will be needed to do so? All questions that would benefit from continued cross-sector dialogue.
Connected Communities
Decision Making in the Age of AI
As AI becomes increasingly capable of analysing information and recommending actions, what remains distinctly human about decision making?
That question brought 20 emerging leaders from 16 countries together at the 2026 Global Changemakers Workshop in Hyderabad, India, for a programme titled Decision Making in an Age of AI. Arne Larsen and Alexander Plimmer represented New Zealand as this year's Aspen NZ scholarship recipients, spending four days working through AI's implications for power, work, security and governance, opening with readings ranging from Plato to Ursula Le Guin, and closing with a policy simulation that placed each participant inside a fictional AI crisis - Arne took on the role of an investigative journalist, tracing the incentives and information behind other participants' decisions in real time.
In his reflection, Arne returns to a question that stuck with him - as AI gets better at predicting outcomes, do we actually want a more predictable future, and who benefits most if we get one?
Congratulations to Arne and Alex on being selected for this year's scholarships, and our thanks to the Ananta Aspen Centre for hosting them in Hyderabad and to Aspen International Partners, who funded their places and made the trip possible.
The Aspen NZ Security Forum takes place next month in Queenstown, gathering leaders across business, technology, investment, defence, infrastructure and government from New Zealand, Australia and international Aspen networks. Focused on technology, economic security and strategic capability, the Forum operates as a highly interactive Aspen-style gathering - cross-sector by design, and structured to move from frank assessment of the strategic environment to practical, forward-looking discussion. Limited places remaining.
The New Zealand Security Dialogues bring together senior leaders from business, government, and society in small, private settings to work through the geopolitical, technological and trade pressures reshaping New Zealand's strategic environment. Each dialogue is conducted under Chatham House Rule, creating the conditions for candid, cross-sector discussion on issues that don't always surface in formal settings. If you are interested in taking part or supporting a dialogue, please contact us.
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