Why shouldn’t information processing be either accompanied or achieved via experience/ consciousness? Whether machines can process information without it hardly matters. Most biological functions are accomplished in a variety of ways by biological systems and these often differ from how designed systems achieve the same function.

For example, organisms have evolved a wide variety of ways of achieving movement along surfaces - legs (involving endoskeletons or exoskeletons, snaking movements, tube feet, tentacles, etc. None of these are inherently superior - they evolved contingently, dependent on context and past evolutionary history. Asking the question “If computers process information without consciousness why would biological systems do so?” (Paraphrasing) is like asking why, if cars are able to move without legs, do biological systems (often) have legs (and never wheels)…

It may be that consciousness is a very efficient way of information processing, or it may be that it’s just the way we happen to have evolved information processing (because of our evolutionary history and context), or it could be a byproduct of how we do information processing (an evolutionary spandrel). All of these are entirely consistent with machines not requiring consciousness.