Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched the AWS Asia Pacific (New Zealand) Region, giving organisations the option to run workloads and store data domestically while serving end users with lower latency.
Amazon plans to invest more than NZ$7.5bn to build and operate the new infrastructure, which it estimates will add approximately NZ$10.8bn to New Zealand’s GDP and support an average of more than 1,000 full-time equivalent jobs annually across external suppliers in areas such as facilities, engineering and telecoms.
The region opens with three Availability Zones and is described by AWS as “sovereign-by-design”, aimed at customers with data-residency preferences or requirements across sectors including financial services, retail, education, government and non-profit.
“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 Prasad Kalyanaraman, vice president of Infrastructure Services at AWS.
“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.”
Graeme Muller, chief executive at NZTech, said the opening is “an exciting moment”, adding that Amazon’s infrastructure investment and skills programmes “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.”
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AWS said the region will be underpinned by renewable energy from day one through a long-term project with Mercury NZ for the Turitea South wind farm. It added that ongoing efficiency work spans datacentre design, purpose-built chips and cooling innovations.
A report by Accenture, commissioned by AWS, estimates AWS infrastructure can be up to 4.1 times more energy efficient than typical on-premises IT and that optimised workloads can cut associated carbon emissions by up to 99%.
The launch builds on recent local infrastructure additions, including two Amazon CloudFront edge locations in Auckland (2020), an AWS Direct Connect location (2023) and an AWS Local Zones location (2023).
Through a memorandum of understanding with the New Zealand government, Amazon has committed to train 100,000 people in cloud skills and says it has already provided training to more than 50,000.
New Zealand organisations using AWS include AMP New Zealand, Kiwibank, Ministry of Transport, New Zealand Post, One New Zealand, TVNZ, University of Auckland, Wellington City Council and Xero, alongside partners such as Accenture, Datacom, Deloitte and The Instillery.
Globally, AWS now comprises 120 Availability Zones across 38 Regions and has announced plans for 10 more Availability Zones and three Regions in Chile, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the AWS European Sovereign Cloud.
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