SYDNEY, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Australia's Appen ( APPEF ), a

big supplier of human assessment of artificial intelligence

systems, said rising technology protectionism would boost demand

in the United States and China for its services that use real

people to train and test models.

The outlook offers a counterintuitive glimpse of AI-era

winners. While automation drives mass layoffs at some businesses

such as WiseTech and Block, demand is rising

for companies that supply the human input needed to develop and

refine AI.

Tech protectionism, which has already prompted Washington to

restrict Nvidia AI chip exports to China, could give

rise to trade barriers in data, model sourcing and verification,

forcing companies to develop these locally, Appen's ( APPEF ) CEO said.

"There will be some protectionism going in place, which will

create more demand for data, which kind of puts Appen ( APPEF ) in a good

spot because we get to play on both sides," Chief Executive Ryan

Kolln said in an interview.

"It helps ... that we're Australia. It's a little bit of the

Switzerland approach where we're not strongly aligned to the

U.S. or China. The divisions are, but we aren't as a business,"

Kolln added, referring to the European country's neutral status.

Appen ( APPEF ) this week said underlying pre-tax profit for the year

to December more than tripled due to a surge in contracts from

China and new generative AI projects for its global unit - which

includes the U.S. The company said it expected sales to grow up

to 30% in 2026.

Appen ( APPEF ) uses a vast global network of casual workers to

provide human verification of synthetic data, but Kolln said as

AI products became advanced the qualifications for workers

became more specific.

"We've been asked to find people who ... competed in Math

Olympiad and won a gold medal," he said. "They're easy to find

because you can search it, but how do you get them to want to

work for you?"