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AI licences and capability building for the tertiary sector

Details

RFx ID : 35015091
Tender Name : AI licences and capability building for the tertiary sector
Reference # : AI-448
Open Date : Thursday, 24 September 2026 5:30 PM (Pacific/Auckland UTC+12:00)
Close Date  : Friday, 23 October 2026 10:00 AM (Pacific/Auckland UTC+13:00)
Department/Business Unit : Information Directorate
Tender Type : Request for Proposals (RFP)
Tender Coverage : Sole Agency  [?]
Categories :
  • 43000000 - Information Technology Broadcasting and Telecommunications
Regions:
  • New Zealand
Exemption Reason : None
Required Pre-qualifications : None
Contact : Elaine Hiroki
044745654
Alternate Physical Delivery Address  :
Alternate Physical Fax Number  :
Overview

The Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) is seeking commercially licensed, enterprise- or education-grade general-purpose generative AI services for staff and students across New Zealand’s tertiary education institutions (TEIs), including universities, polytechnics and wānanga. The opportunity is based on potential access for up to approximately 420,000 staff and students. This figure is provided for evaluation and pricing purposes only and does not represent guaranteed uptake.
The services must provide broad access to advanced generative AI capabilities for teaching, learning, research and organisational use. This includes conversational AI, advanced reasoning and research, document and data analysis, multimodal capabilities, and the creation or use of AI assistants or agents.
Services should be designed for institution-wide deployment, with appropriate administration, identity, security, privacy, governance, usage management and support. Proposed services must provide materially greater capability, capacity and/or usage allowances than free, consumer or basic AI offerings.
The procurement has two linked components:
(1) licensing, access and consumption capacity; and
(2) implementation and capability building.
Commercial arrangements should be transparent and scalable, recognise aggregated sector demand, and support effective, responsible and sustained adoption across participating TEIs.
We intend to establish arrangements with one or more suppliers while preserving institutional choice. Each eligible TEI will decide whether to participate and which provider, or providers, best meet its needs.


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