Editor’s Note: This article offers an in-depth report on Day One of the 2025 Dublin Tech Summit, an annual technology event that has become a strategic touchpoint for both public policy and enterprise innovation in Ireland. With keynote insights from Minister Jack Chambers and OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar, the article explores the convergence of infrastructure, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, and digital service delivery. It’s particularly relevant to professionals in cybersecurity, information governance, legal technology, and digital transformation who are tracking how AI is not only transforming commercial sectors but becoming embedded in national service frameworks. The themes of trusted systems, cross-sector collaboration, and scaled innovation run throughout, providing a high-value perspective on the operationalization of AI at national and global levels.

Industry News – Technology Beat

Wired for Progress: How Ireland and OpenAI Are Scaling Intelligence, Infrastructure, and Innovation

ComplexDiscovery Staff

In 1858, Ireland helped connect continents with the first transatlantic telegraph cable. In 2025, the country is laying a new kind of connection—one routed through data centers, digital public services, and artificial intelligence ecosystems.

At this year’s annual Dublin Tech Summit, a premier technology event drawing global innovators, policymakers, and enterprise leaders, Ireland reaffirmed its position as a digital bridge between old infrastructure and future intelligence.

Opening Day featured two key voices shaping this transformation: Minister Jack Chambers, responsible for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform, and Digitalization, and Sarah Friar, Chief Financial Officer of OpenAI. Together, they mapped a vision that combines scalable AI, secure public systems, and global collaboration.

Government Sets a Strategic Digital Agenda

Minister Chambers opened the Summit with a message rooted in both history and ambition. “This is an event which plays a significant role in supporting Ireland’s reputation as a dynamic global tech hub,” he told the audience.

Chambers traced Ireland’s technological legacy, from pioneering transatlantic cables to today’s fiber optics and cloud computing. Yet he focused firmly on the future, emphasizing the country’s commitment to digitalization and infrastructure reform.

One major milestone: the government’s target to digitize 90% of key public services by 2030. A new digital public services strategy will soon be launched, serving as a roadmap for integrating technology across healthcare, education, and administration. Already, AI is being applied in various departments, but Chambers admitted uptake has been inconsistent. “The take-up is patchy and piecemeal,” he said.

To change that, his department recently introduced guidelines for AI use in public service, aiming to provide clarity and encourage responsible adoption. The vision is to create citizen- and business-centric systems that reduce friction, enhance access, and deliver value for money.

Infrastructure as a National Enabler

Chambers stressed that digital progress must be underpinned by physical infrastructure. He called for aggressive investment in housing, transport, energy, and water systems to support Ireland’s growing tech ecosystem.

“We need more homes,” he said, adding that such development is essential to attract global talent and maintain economic momentum. He linked infrastructure goals directly to innovation capacity, drawing parallels to transformative Irish projects from the past century.

He also spotlighted the importance of energy grid modernization and digital backbone development to accommodate the compute power required by AI and other emerging technologies.

Cybersecurity and AI: The Double-Edged Sword

The minister highlighted growing cybersecurity threats, which he said are evolving faster than at any point in the last decade. AI, while offering immense benefits, also lowers the barrier for cybercrime, enabling more precise, automated attacks.

“Our response needs to be not just whole of government but also international in nature,” he said. He praised Ireland’s National Cyber Security Centre and emphasized its role in creating adaptive, intelligent defense systems.

AI’s dual-use nature—enhancing both innovation and risk—demands agile policy, balanced regulation, and collaboration beyond national borders. “Cybersecurity is a global team sport,” Chambers added.

The Enterprise Perspective: Sarah Friar on Scaling AI

Following Chambers, OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar joined Reuters journalist Carmel Crimmins on the main stage to explore the economics and ethics of large-scale AI adoption.

“There’s not a kind of human that I don’t think AI can’t have a small to medium impact on,” Friar said, referencing applications in healthcare, education, and software development.

Friar described OpenAI’s transition from a research lab to a platform at the heart of global productivity. She introduced the concept of “agents”—autonomous tools embedded within ChatGPT that can perform tasks such as booking travel, answering customer queries, and writing software.

These agents, she said, represent the next evolution in AI deployment. Companies worldwide are adopting them, and Ireland, with its talent pool and favorable regulatory environment, is well-positioned to lead.

AI’s Gigawatt Appetite

But progress comes with a price. “This year we’ll consume about 1.8 gigawatts,” Friar revealed, a nearly tenfold increase from just a few years ago. OpenAI’s ambition to scale to 10 gigawatts—nearly twice Ireland’s national energy consumption—requires billions in capital and partnership.

Friar emphasized that this massive infrastructure investment is justified by the potential gains in productivity, knowledge discovery, and public benefit. “We’re talking about raising money almost like a country,” she said.

National AI Integration: Ireland’s Next Opportunity

OpenAI has launched an initiative called “OpenAI for Countries,” aimed at helping governments integrate AI into national strategies. Friar said her team met with Irish officials just a day prior to discuss how the country could expand access and usage.

Currently, about 28% of Ireland’s adult internet users engage with ChatGPT weekly. Friar suggested this could be significantly higher, pointing to successful rollouts in Estonia and the United Arab Emirates, where ChatGPT is embedded in education and public service delivery.

She cited Dublin’s tourism board, which uses AI to create personalized itineraries, as a sign of what’s possible when policy, data, and creativity align.

Balancing Mission and Market

Crimmins pressed Friar on OpenAI’s structure, which includes a nonprofit governing a capped-profit subsidiary. Friar defended the model as both strategic and ethical. “The board of the PBC has a fiduciary duty to both mission alignment and shareholder value,” she said.

Though Friar acknowledged that OpenAI could go public in the future, she insisted the timing must align with market readiness and internal stability. “You can show up at the altar all ready to go, and if the market’s not ready, you’re out of luck.”

She also addressed open-source competition from models like China’s DeepSeek, acknowledging their efficiencies but highlighting OpenAI’s broader investments in safety, scale, and frontier capability.

Developers and the Autonomous Future

Friar closed with a look at how AI is transforming software development. Autonomous agents can now act as entry-level engineers, freeing up human developers to focus on complex architecture and innovation.

Companies like Stripe and Grab are already using OpenAI APIs to deliver intelligent customer support and scale internal tools. “I would really take a hard line on adding that next person before you push your team to say, could we do this using AI?”

From Cable Terminals to Digital Frontiers

Ireland’s role as a connector hasn’t faded—it has simply changed cables. The country that once linked Europe and America through copper is now building pipelines of data, policy, and intelligence to power the future.

At the 2025 Dublin Tech Summit, that story came full circle. Minister Jack Chambers outlined a national vision where infrastructure and services align to serve a digital-first citizenry. Sarah Friar shared how OpenAI is scaling tools and systems that make that vision executable and equitable.

Together, they revealed that the future of AI won’t be built in isolation. It will be co-engineered by governments and innovators, designed to serve people, and secured by trust.

The question now is not whether AI will scale, but who will shape its direction. Ireland, by all accounts, is not just participating—it’s planning to lead.

About Dublin Tech Summit: Since its first event in 2017, the Dublin Tech Summit has grown into one of Europe’s most influential B2B technology conferences, attracting industry leaders, innovators, and media from around the world to explore the latest developments in enterprise technology, cybersecurity, and digital transformation.

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