Amazon announced Monday the launch of the AWS Asia Pacific (New Zealand) region with potential investment of NZ$7.5 billion ($4.4 billion).

The firm said in a statement that the new AWS Region will give developers, startups, entrepreneurs, and enterprises, as well as financial services, retail, education, government, and nonprofit organizations, greater choice for running their applications and serving end users from data centers located in New Zealand.

As part of its long-term commitment, Amazon is planning to invest more than NZ$7.5 billion ($4.4 billion) in New Zealand to support the construction, connection, operation, and maintenance of its data centers in the country.

“The new AWS Region in New Zealand will help serve the growing demand for cloud services across the country and empower organizations of all sizes to accelerate their
digital transformation,

“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,” said Prasad Kalyanaraman, vice president of Infrastructure Services at AWS.

“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,” he added.

The AWS Asia Pacific (New Zealand) Region consists of three Availability Zones at launch, giving AWS 120 Availability Zones across 38 AWS Regions globally.

With the announcement, AWS has plans for ten more Availability Zones and three more AWS Regions in Chile, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the AWS European Sovereign Cloud.

To support the growth in cloud adoption across Asia Pacific, Amazon said it continues to invest in upskilling students, local developers and technical professionals, nontechnical professionals, and the next generation of information technology (IT) leaders in New Zealand through offerings like AWS Academy, AWS Educate, and AWS Skill Builder.

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.

As part of its commitment to contribute to the development of digital skills, AWS will hire and develop additional local personnel to operate and support the new AWS Region in New Zealand.

Organizations in New Zealand that choose AWS to run their workloads include AMP New Zealand, AsureQuality, Contact Energy, Education Perfect, Foodstuffs South Island, Halter, Kiwibank, MATTR, Mercury NZ, Les Mills, Ministry of Transport, Mitre 10 New Zealand, New Zealand Post, One New Zealand, Sharesies, Steel & Tube Holdings, Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand, TradeMe, TVNZ, University of Auckland, Vector, Wellington City Council, Xero, and more.

AWS Partners in New Zealand include Accenture, Arcanum, CustomD, CyberCX, Datacom, Deloitte, The Instillery, Lancom, MongoDB, Westcon-Comstor, and more.

Amazon said the firm is committed to becoming a more sustainable business and reaching netzero carbon across its operations by 2040 as part of The Climate Pledge.

The firm co-founded The Climate Pledge and became its first signatory in 2019.

The AWS Asia Pacific (New Zealand) Region will be underpinned by renewable energy from day one, through a long-term agreement with Mercury NZ for the Turitea South wind farm.

This agreement supports the development of new renewable energy capacity in New Zealand and advances Amazon’s sustainability goals.

The partnership with Mercury NZ, an AWS customer, demonstrates how digitalization and decarbonization can advance together to support a sustainable future for New
Zealand, said the statement.

The AWS Asia Pacific (New Zealand) Region is also the latest Amazon investment in New Zealand to provide customers with advanced and secure cloud technologies.

Amazon estimated the ongoing operation of the new AWS Region will add approximately NZ$10.8 billion ($6.33 billion) to New Zealand’s gross domestic product (GDP) and support an average of more than 1,000 full-time equivalent jobs, including facility maintenance, engineering, telecommunications, and others, at external businesses annually.

“I think that investment is immense and it is historic. It will have a significant impact on our GDP,

“It will create up to 1,000 jobs, and it will deliver more than almost NZ$11 billion worth of boost to our GDP and it is confidence that shows that New Zealand is a great place for investment for the future,” said Rt Hon Christopher Luxon, Prime Minister of New Zealand.

According to him, this is the largest publicly announced technology investment in New Zealand.

The AWS Asia Pacific (New Zealand) Region will enable customers with data residency preferences or requirements to store their content securely in New Zealand, enable customers to achieve even lower latency, and serve demand for cloud services across Asia Pacific.

Customers from startups to enterprises to government organizations and nonprofits will be able to use advanced technologies from the world’s leading cloud provider to drive innovation, reduce costs, and accelerate transformation.

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