Wellington made its mark as an AI leader as host of the record-breaking Pacific Rim International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (PRICAI).

Hosted by Victoria University of Wellington (VUW), the conference attracted 550 researchers from 30 countries, following a successful bid led by Professor Mengjie Zhang, Director, and Professor Bing Xue, Deputy Director, of VUW’s Te Whiri Kawe - Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence.

PRICAI 2025 was held in conjunction with the local conferences of Image and Vision Computing New Zealand (IVCNZ) and the Artificial Intelligence Researchers Association New Zealand, connecting the three communities together.

The international reputation of VUW’s AI research community helped attract higher-than-expected attendance. “For both PRICAI and IVCNZ, we hit the record high number of submissions, with authors from over 50 countries,” says Xue.

Delegate Nelishia Pillay of the Department of Computer Science, University of Pretoria, adds: “The trip was worth it. The group led by Mengjie Zhang and Bing Xue at Victoria University of Wellington, they’re one of the leading groups in my area.”

The interconnectedness of Wellington’s knowledge hubs and access to government departments helped with the prospect of advancing AI for positive impacts across the economy, environment, health, and society.

Dr Sankalp Khanna of CSIRO Health & Biosecurity in Australia, delegate and member of the PRICAI steering committee, says it was “a fantastic conference”. “It’s given the international community a really good way to interact with the local community here, all of whom are working on academic and real-world problems that AI can help solve, that has probably been the highlight of the conference for me.” 

PRICAI 2025 was supported by Business Events Wellington and Tourism New Zealand Business Events.

To discover how New Zealand can elevate your next international conference, visit businessevents.newzealand.com