AWS launches ‘sovereign by design’ New Zealand cloud region

Amazon Web Services has launched its Asia Pacific (New Zealand) cloud region to enable customers and industry to run applications and serve end users from New Zealand data centres.

The region, which AWS decribed as being “sovereign by design”, consists of three availability zones at launch, giving AWS 120 such zones across 38 regions globally.

“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 vice president of infrastructure services 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.”

AWS has promised to invest $7.5B to deliver lower latency sovereign cloud services and enable customers with data residency preferences or requirements to store their content securely in New Zealand.

Launching the region, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said he believed it to be the largest publicly announced technology investment in New Zealand.

“It’s certainly the largest by any international technology company,” he said. “And I know that for many of the companies that are here, some of New Zealand’s most prominent technology companies have built their success, taking their products and services to Kiwis out across the whole world on AWS technology, which is taking their tech out there to the world.”

The launch also delivered access to world class cloud services for small and medium enterprises, Luxon said.

“It’s about having the tools, to scale globally, and to become more productive,” he said. “For our public sector, it means enhanced security, performance, and resilience, and rest assured we have a big job to digitise government, and that’s a big focus of mine going forward from here.”  

The launch of data centre initiatives in New Zealand promised significant economic benefits, such as job creation and fostering technological innovation, said government chief digital officer Paul James. 

“Strategic collaboration boosts the New Zealand public sector and accelerates New Zealand’s growing technology sector, digital economy, and the adoption of cloud services in New Zealand,” he said.

Many local organisations are already running workloads on AWS. Customers include AMP New Zealand, AsureQuality, Contact Energy, Foodstuffs South Island, Kiwibank, Mitre 10 New Zealand and New Zealand Post among others.

AWS’ local partners, meanwhile, include Accenture, CyberCX, Datacom, Deloitte, The Instillery, Lancom, MongoDB and Westcon-Comstor.

The region is powered by renewable energy through a long-term agreement with Mercury NZ for electricity generated at its Turitea South wind farm.

“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,” NZTech CEO Graeme Muller said.

AWS regions consist of availability zones that place infrastructure in separate and distinct geographic locations far enough away from each other to support customers’ business continuity, but near enough to provide low latency for high availability applications.

Each availability zone has independent power, cooling, and physical security, and is connected through redundant, ultra-low-latency networks. AWS customers focused on high availability can design their applications to run in multiple availability zones to achieve even greater fault tolerance.

Luxon said he thought the investment was “immense and historic”.

“It will have a significant impact on our GDP,” he said. “It will create up to 1000 jobs, and it will deliver more than almost $11B worth of boost to our GDP and it is confidence that shows that New Zealand is a great place for investment for the future.”  

AWS is also supporting the growth in cloud adoption across Asia Pacific by investing in skills for students, local developers, technical professionals, nontechnical professionals and the next generation of NZ IT leaders.

Amazon has committed through a memorandum of understanding with the New Zealand government to train 100,000 people in New Zealand in cloud skills and has already provided training to more than 50,000, it said at today’s launch.

In March, new AWS country manager Manuel Bohnet told Reseller News there was a huge appetite for ambitious thinking in New Zealand.

“Organisations expect to use new solutions easily,” he said. “They want to build Gen AI applications flexibly, securely and with the right guardrails in place. And they want to scale cost effectively. Technology decisions are moving from IT to the business, and AI is an accelerator of that.”