Amazon has announced the launch of its AWS Asia Pacific (New Zealand) Region, marking a significant expansion of its cloud infrastructure in the country. The new region is expected to provide local customers with more options for running workloads and storing data securely within New Zealand, while also reducing latency for end users.
As part of this initiative, Amazon plans to invest over NZ$7.5 billion in New Zealand. This investment will support the construction, operation, and maintenance of data centers and is projected to add about NZ$10.8 billion to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). The company estimates that the ongoing operation of the new AWS Region will support an average of more than 1,000 full-time equivalent jobs annually across various sectors such as facility maintenance, engineering, and telecommunications.
Prasad Kalyanaraman, vice president of Infrastructure Services at AWS, stated: "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. 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."
Graeme Muller, CEO at NZTech, added: “The launch of the AWS Region in New Zealand is an exciting moment. 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.”
The new AWS Region launches with three Availability Zones. Globally, AWS now operates 120 Availability Zones across 38 regions. There are also plans for further expansion with additional zones and regions in Chile, Saudi Arabia, and Europe.
AWS has previously enhanced connectivity in New Zealand through investments such as subsea cable connections established in 2016 for improved network reliability; launching two Amazon CloudFront edge locations in Auckland in 2020; establishing an AWS Direct Connect location in Auckland in 2023; and opening an AWS Local Zones location last year to bring select services closer to major population centers.
The company has committed to sustainability goals by aiming for net-zero carbon operations by 2040 under The Climate Pledge. The new region will use renewable energy from day one through a partnership with Mercury NZ’s Turitea South wind farm project.
Amazon continues efforts to develop local talent through training programs like AWS Academy and AWS Educate. Under a Memorandum of Understanding with the New Zealand government, Amazon aims to train 100,000 people locally in cloud skills—having already trained over half that number—and will hire additional personnel for ongoing operations.
Major organizations using AWS services in New Zealand include AMP New Zealand, Kiwibank, Ministry of Transport, TVNZ, University of Auckland, Wellington City Council and Xero.
AWS claims its infrastructure is significantly more energy efficient than traditional on-premises solutions—a report by Accenture commissioned by AWS found it could be up to 4.1 times more efficient—and when optimized on AWS can reduce associated carbon footprints by up to 99%.
For further details about global infrastructure or sustainability efforts visit aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure or aws.amazon.com/about-aws/sustainability.