News

Leaders from across the Pacific, Australia, Singapore, Canada, China and beyond met at Denarau on 30 and 31 July for the Pacific Fiber Conference 2026 (PFC26), and NiuPay was proud to be a Platinum sponsor. Organised by the Fiber Network Council APAC, hosted by Telecom Fiji at the Sheraton Fiji Golf and Beach Resort and supported by the Pacific Islands Telecommunications Association, the conference took the theme “Pacific Connected: Foundations for the AI Era”.

On stage

On the first day, our Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder, Jason Kurdzinski, and our Chief Operating Officer, Trevor Manokore, gave a keynote on putting AI to work. Through live demonstrations, they showed AI moving from pilots and proofs of concept into secure, governed systems doing real work for government and enterprise.

The clearest example is already in production in Papua New Guinea: the MyICSA Analysis Engine, which we built with the Immigration and Citizenship Services Authority (ICSA). It uses generative AI to help process visa applications, with immigration officers deciding anything that needs their judgement. Around 95 per cent of short-term visa applications are now automated, and processing has fallen from weeks to minutes. It’s the first known deployment of generative AI in a government production environment in the Pacific Islands. Read more about our visa and border work.

Students in the room

Throughout the conference we hosted student interns and young women delegates from universities across Fiji and the region, so they could spend time with the industry leaders shaping the sector they’ll soon join.

Speaking to FBC News at the conference, Trevor talked about the Pacific’s digital skills gap, driven partly by talented people moving away and partly by the pace at which education can adapt. Helping to close it is one of the reasons we’re building our team in Fiji.

Thank you to Telecom Fiji, the Fiber Network Council APAC and everyone who joined the conversation.