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Amazon Web Services has announced its first data centre region in New Zealand, four years after the company announced its plans.
The AWS Asia Pacific (New Zealand) region will consist of three availability zones at launch. Globally, this will bring AWS availability zones to 120 across 38 AWS Regions.
“The new AWS Region in New Zealand will help serve the growing demand for cloud services across the country and empower organisations of all sizes to accelerate their digital transformation,” said AWS Infrastructure Services Vice President Prasad Kalyanaraman.
“With this launch, businesses can now leverage advanced AWS technologies, from core cloud capabilities to artificial intelligence and machine learning, all while meeting local data residency requirements. By investing in New Zealand’s digital infrastructure, we’re proud to support the country’s economic growth, foster innovation, and help position it as a technology hub in the Asia Pacific region.”
As part of the launch, Amazon said it plans to invest more than NZ$7.5 billion and support an average of more than 1,000 full-time equivalent jobs annually in New Zealand. It expects to add approximately NZ$10.8 billion to New Zealand’s GDP.
Through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the New Zealand government, Amazon has committed to train 100,000 people in New Zealand in cloud skills and has already provided training to more than 50,000 individuals.
AWS will also hire and develop additional local personnel to operate and support the new AWS Region in New Zealand. These roles will include facility maintenance, engineering, and telecommunications.
According to AWS, its new region will be leverage renewable energy from day one, supported by a long-term project with Mercury NZ for the Turitea South wind farm.
Active AWS customers in New Zealand include AMP New Zealand, Kiwibank, Ministry of Transport, New Zealand Post, One New Zealand, TVNZ, University of Auckland, Wellington City Council, Xero and more.
“The launch of the AWS Region in New Zealand is an exciting moment,” said NZTech CEO Graeme Muller.
“This investment in digital infrastructure and Amazon’s commitment to digital skills can accelerate New Zealand technology businesses and help New Zealanders to move into highly skilled, secure, and well-paid technology jobs, which exist right across the economy, from tech companies to various sectors including agriculture, finance, retail, professional services, government, and many more.”
AWS has plans to launch ten more availability zones and three more AWS Regions in Chile, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and – hot on the heels of the latest news from SAP – the AWS European Sovereign Cloud.
