So far, NZIAT has 11 staff. Reyhani says he has a mandate to hire up to 25 for its effort to co-ordinate relations between researchers, investors and business.
Photo / Michael Craig
Four of the employees so far are from Callaghan Innovation, which was defunded in Budget 2025 and formally wound up in November last year, with some of its research scientists joining restructured Crown research institutes, and much of its role allocating R&D grants going to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).
Will more Callaghan staff come across to NZIAT?
“I’m taking a first-principles look at this,” Reyhani told the Herald.
“What are the capabilities that we need and the expertise, and then where do we best find those individuals?
“If they come from Callaghan, amazing, right? They’ll bring institutional knowledge.
“But if they have to be from industry or the venture world, we’ll hopefully pull in the best and brightest.”
From Rwanda to VC jungle
Reyhani, 45, is from that venture capital world – a contrast to Callaghan’s academic bent, and in tune with the Government’s overall drive to shift science funding from blue-sky research to a more commercial focus.
The Kiwi completed a law degree at the University of Auckland , where he was twice a Peace and Disarmament Education Trust scholarship recipient.
His path was not the usual one for the “tech bro”-heavy world of venture capital. Reyhani completed a master’s in international law in the Netherlands before taking a role with the Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, then the Tanzania-based United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
In a career pivot in 2010 he shifted to the US, where he held a string of venture capital roles.
“I spent a fair amount of time at Boston Consulting Group’s business building arm called BCG Digital Ventures [now BCGX]. The work we were doing there was standing up businesses, commercialising technology, taking things from the lab all the way through to the market. That’s the capability and skillset that I’d be bringing here to New Zealand,” he says.
After 20 years abroad – picking up an American twang along the way – he returned to Auckland last year for a role with a commercial property firm.
The digs
NZIAT’s home is the Auckland Council-backed GridAKL (Mayor Wayne Brown publicly lobbied for the new agency to be based in Auckland; Callaghan was based in the capital).
GridAKL markets itself as “community for entrepreneurs and start-ups”, and its Wynyard Quarter building features a number of shared co-working spaces – but NZIAT has its own discreet offices.
“We’ve got a good view of Bezos’s boat over there, too,” Reyhani says, pointing to the Amazon and Blue Origin founder’s $800 million superyacht Koru, berthed at a Wynyard Quarter wharf as a physical reminder of the spoils of frontier tech.
NZIAT has three areas of initial focus:
1. Artificial intelligence
Up to $70m will be invested over seven years to “create a centre of gravity for AI research in New Zealand – one that builds capability, delivers excellent science with flow-through to commercial outcomes, and is internationally recognised and regarded”.
As with other initiatives, it’s not new funding but drawn from funds saved by the closure of Callaghan Innovation and the closure or reduction of other research initiatives.
“New Zealand’s advantage in AI is largely around the data sets that we have and the application layer for some of the AI products that could come out of our various research institutions,” Reyhani says.
“At the moment, just given the fact that we have some active discussions underway, I can’t get into any of the specifics, but hopefully we’ll have an announcement around that soon.”
2. Quantum computing
A $1.33m “discovery phase” could lead to more NZIAT work in this cutting-edge area, which should produce dramatically faster and more capable computers (possibly rendering all of today’s encryption worthless in the process).
It’s an area where the tech giants have spent hundreds of millions, and the Australian Government has been notably on the front foot, allocating around A$2 billion ($2.46b) through various technology support programmes.
“There’s no way that New Zealand’s going to be building a quantum computer,” Reyhani says.
“That’s something that requires significant capital and expertise and a large ecosystem around it. The likes of IBM would be building that. What we would be doing is taking some of the technology that exists in New Zealand and working with partners overseas to be able to commercialise those through various mechanisms.”
It’s still up in the air if NZIAT will push ahead in this area, which is still sci-fi territory for many.
How could quantum computing be commercialised?
“The way I would look at it is largely around the structures for the deals,” Reyhani says.
“Ideally, we always want to ensure that we have some kind of demand-side pull for anything that gets commercialised and anything that gets funded, and that can come through various structures. It could be some kind of licence or royalty.
“Potentially, although this still needs to be defined, is there an opportunity to spin out a business of some sort that’s able to provide capabilities into industry. At the moment, because the quantum space is still under final review, we haven’t got the structures defined at this stage.”
3. Future magnetic and materials technologies
The laptop worker-friendly GridAKL is a world away from Callaghan’s old light-industrial, Soviet-style, research-friendly buildings in Lower Hutt.
But as with quantum computing, NZIAT will be playing an orchestration role.
Victoria University’s Robinson Research Institute will be carrying out the grunt work, with $71m of funding over seven years.
Robinson is known for world-leading expertise in superconductors, magnets and materials technologies that have many applications, including building smaller, faster engines and developing portable MRI machines (an area where Christchurch start-up Mars Bioimaging is a partner).
NZIAT is also taking over responsibility for the Health Technology Activator programme formerly run by Callaghan, which helps early-stage health techs commercialise their research.
The Herald also spied a banner for the New Zealand Defence Technology Accelerator – a programme that will fund drones and other new technologies. The Government has said it will expand to become a $100m to $300m programme, although its initial funding was modest: Budget 2026 allocated $17.67m for the accelerator through to 2030.
In all of the above areas, there’s a gap between frontier research and commercialisation, Reyhani says.
Bridging that gap is his mission. Exactly how, though, is still very much at the whiteboard stage.
Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.
