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Artificial intelligence is expected to shape the competitiveness of every New Zealand organisation over the next five years, but many leaders are still asking where to start and how to manage the risks. Datacom’s AI Sandpit gives New Zealand organisations a safe, structured environment to experiment with powerful AI tools, build internal capability and progress from pilots to production with confidence.
New Zealand boards and executives are under pressure to “do something with AI”, yet their teams are often still navigating data, governance and cost questions. An AI Sandpit provides the missing middle ground: a secure, ring‑fenced space to learn, test and refine AI use cases before they touch core systems or customers.
For New Zealand organisations, an AI Sandpit helps to:
Protect trusted brands by containing experimentation, so misaligned models or unexpected behaviours are identified early rather than in live channels.
The AI Sandpit is designed for New Zealand organisations that need to explore AI safely before committing to large‑scale delivery, especially in regulated sectors such as government, health, education and financial services.
Datacom’s AI Sandpit is a containerised platform that combines infrastructure, software and a structured education programme into a single solution that runs in your own environment. It is deliberately non‑production by design, with clear boundaries between the “playground” where teams experiment and the “live” platforms that support customers and citizens.
Key characteristics for New Zealand organisations include:
On‑premises or hybrid deployment: Run the AI Sandpit server in your own data centres or a hybrid model, maintaining control over data location, network access and integration points.
Flexible, open architecture: Built with Red Hat OpenShift and Red Hat AI on Dell hardware, supporting a broad mix of open‑source frameworks, GPUs (NVIDIA or AMD) and external model endpoints so you are not locked into a single vendor stack.
This structure lets teams explore everything from large language models (LLMs) to traditional machine learning and computer vision workloads, while keeping infrastructure ownership, cost control and risk firmly in your hands.
New Zealand organisations need to innovate without compromising security, privacy or sustainability. Datacom’s AI Sandpit is designed so experimentation aligns to your risk appetite from day one.
With options for complete isolation from the public internet, AI workloads can be tightly controlled behind firewalls and segmented networks, dramatically reducing the risk of data leakage or unintended access. Running AI workloads on‑premises supports sovereignty and digital resilience strategies by keeping critical data and models close to home, helping organisations continue essential services and recover quickly from disruptions.
The Sandpit also helps teams optimise AI at the edge, reducing reliance on energy‑intensive cloud data centres by processing tasks closer to users and cutting unnecessary network traffic and emissions.
Technology alone will not make AI successful in New Zealand; people and capability are the real differentiators. Datacom’s AI Sandpit includes an integrated education layer that helps your teams learn how to frame AI opportunities, prepare data and work effectively with modern tooling.
Programme components include:
A full‑day AI Sandpit masterclass that brings together your budding infrastructure specialists, data scientists and business stakeholders to work through the end‑to‑end lifecycle, from use‑case scoping to sizing infrastructure and selecting models.
Hands‑on labs with familiar tools such as Jupyter Notebooks and Python, where teams learn practical techniques for data cleansing, deduplication, feature engineering and secure handling of sensitive data.
On‑demand training content that mirrors the in‑person experience, so staff can revisit concepts as they start new AI initiatives and reinforce learning over time.
Over a structured 12‑month programme, New Zealand organisations can move from “we should do something with AI” to operating cross‑functional teams that can scope, build and evaluate AI solutions with a clear understanding of cost, risk and value.
AI has evolved from simple analytical tools that identified patterns in data, to advanced systems than can understand, create and make autonomous decisions. We help organisations build the right AI capabilities to effectively meet your organisational needs now and in the future.
The goal of Datacom’s AI Sandpit is not endless experimentation, but faster, safer paths to production for New Zealand organisations. Iterating in a controlled environment surfaces issues early – whether in data quality, model behaviour or integration patterns – before they can impact operations, customers or citizens.
New Zealand healthcare providers, public sector agencies and tertiary institutions are already exploring AI Sandpit models to support research, training and regulated workloads that require strong governance and local control. The same pattern applies to financial services, insurance and other data‑rich, highly regulated sectors where the cost of getting AI wrong is high.
By the time teams graduate from the sandpit programme, they have:
A validated backlog of AI use cases, prioritised by value and feasibility.
A realistic view of data readiness and technical constraints.
Evidence of what works technically and commercially, ready to inform production‑grade platforms and applications.
Datacom’s education‑focused teams work alongside AI consulting and delivery specialists, ensuring a clean handover from learning environments into operating and optimising live AI solutions.
Strategic partnerships
Datacom’s AI Sandpit is underpinned by deep partnerships with Dell and Red Hat, bringing together proven hardware and open, cloud‑native software to create a flexible, enterprise‑grade environment.
Red Hat delivers the open software layer, with Red Hat OpenShift and Red Hat AI enabling containerised AI workloads, GPU scheduling and integration with leading frameworks and accelerators, while avoiding lock‑in to a single AI vendor stack.
Datacom brings together deep New Zealand expertise and enterprise‑grade AI capability to give you a safe, structured way to learn, experiment and scale AI – starting in the sandpit and extending into production. This means your teams can explore modern AI tools with confidence, build internal skills and move the right ideas into value‑creating solutions that support innovation and growth.
When you choose Datacom, you’re making a choice that keeps your enterprise AI solutions local and safe.
We understand New Zealand’s regulatory, sector and cultural context, and design AI Sandpit environments that respect local data residency and sovereignty expectations. At the same time, our partnerships and experience with leading AI platforms, GPUs and cloud providers give you access to the same capabilities as global enterprises, without losing local control.
The AI Sandpit is part of a broader Datacom AI journey that spans strategy, infrastructure, data foundations, model selection and ongoing operations. Cross‑functional teams – from cloud and security specialists to data scientists and industry SMEs – help you progress from early experiments in the sandpit to stable, production‑grade AI services.
Datacom uses a repeatable AI process that starts with education and discovery, moves through prioritised sandpit experiments, then transitions successful use cases into production roadmaps. This structured path reduces false starts, creates an evidence base for investment decisions and supports sustainable AI adoption rather than one‑off pilots.
The AI Sandpit is designed to upskill your people and help them decide what work they want to augment, automate or redesign – not to replace them. By focusing on real use cases, co‑design and change support, Datacom helps you deliver AI that enhances work, unlocks new ways of serving customers and builds long‑term digital resilience.
Together with our customers, we're shaping a future where AI augments human potential while delivering measurable business outcomes.
From the sandpit onwards, Datacom embeds governance, risk and security into how AI is explored and deployed, rather than treating them as add‑ons. Isolated environments, clear guardrails and aligned operating models help support AI in augmenting human potential while protecting sensitive data and supporting measurable, compliant business outcomes.
An AI sandpit is a safe, ring‑fenced environment that can be on-premises, where your teams can experiment with AI tools, models and data without touching production systems or exposing sensitive information on the cloud. It helps you move beyond slideware and pilots by letting people test real use cases, understand costs and risks, and build capability before you commit to large‑scale AI investments.
Datacom’s AI Sandpit is designed to keep sensitive data under your control, with options to run on‑premises or in a hybrid model that aligns with your security, compliance and data residency requirements. Network isolation, strong access controls and clear guardrails around data handling and model access help reduce the risk of leakage while your teams learn and experiment.
The AI Sandpit supports a wide range of use cases, from large language models for content generation, chatbots and document summarisation through to traditional machine learning, forecasting, computer vision and edge AI workloads. Many organisations start with high‑impact, low‑risk scenarios such as internal productivity tools, process automation and report generation, then expand into more complex customer‑facing and industry‑specific use cases as confidence grows.
The sandpit is the “learn and prove” stage of your AI journey, sitting between initial strategy discussions and full production deployment. Datacom uses insights from your sandpit experiments – what works, what fails and what delivers value – to shape a realistic AI roadmap, prioritise investments and design production‑grade platforms and operating models that match your organisation’s risk appetite.
Datacom wraps the sandpit with a structured education programme that includes an AI Masterclass, hands‑on labs and on‑demand learning so your people build practical skills while they experiment. Cross‑functional Datacom teams – spanning cloud, data, security and industry specialists – work alongside you to identify use cases, set up the environment and guide your teams from first experiments to running and supporting AI solutions in production.
The AI Sandpit is designed for New Zealand organisations that need to experiment safely with AI before committing to full‑scale delivery, especially public sector agencies, health providers, tertiary institutions, and financial services organisations operating in regulated environments.
By the end of a Sandpit engagement, you leave with a prioritised set of validated AI use‑cases, reference architectures that show how those use‑cases would be delivered, indicative implementation and operating cost ranges, and a concise risk and controls summary to support internal decision‑making.
Yes. Datacom's team can help design, build and operate production AI solutions on your existing infrastructure, preferred cloud platforms, or a hybrid model.
The Sandpit is designed with New Zealand data sovereignty in mind, supporting that sensitive data remains within agreed NZ locations and is processed in line with your privacy, security and regulatory obligations, including careful selection of cloud regions and deployment patterns.
Governance is built in from day one: we help classify data, identify regulatory constraints, and align to your risk appetite, then turn this into practical guardrails, documented risks and controls, and resilience considerations that can plug into your existing governance, risk and business continuity frameworks.
We start by understanding the challenges that your organisation is facing and the outcomes you are working towards. You can choose to focus on one approach at a time – or all of them can work in harmony.
