Amazon announced the launch of the AWS Asia Pacific (New Zealand) Region.
The new AWS Region will give developers, startups, entrepreneurs, and enterprises, as well as financial services, retail, education, government, and nonprofit organisations, greater choice for running their applications and serving end users from data centres located in New Zealand.
As part of its long-term commitment, Amazon is planning to invest more than NZD 7.5 billion in New Zealand to support the construction, connection, operation, and maintenance of its data centres in the country.
"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. 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."
The AWS Asia Pacific (New Zealand) Region initially consists of three Availability Zones, providing AWS with 120 Availability Zones across 38 AWS Regions globally. It’s sovereign-by-design, just as the AWS cloud has been since day one.
The AWS Asia Pacific (New Zealand) Region will be underpinned by renewable energy from day one, supported by a long-term project with Mercury NZ for the Turitea South wind farm. This project supports the development of new renewable energy capacity in New Zealand, advancing Amazon’s sustainability goals.
The partnership with Mercury NZ, an AWS customer, demonstrates how digitalisation and decarbonisation can advance together to support a sustainable future for New Zealand.
Amazon estimates that the ongoing operation of the new AWS Region will add approximately NZD 10.8 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 other roles, at external businesses annually.
The AWS Asia Pacific (New Zealand) Region will enable customers with data residency preferences or requirements to store their content securely in New Zealand, allowing them to achieve even lower latency and meet demand for cloud services across the Asia Pacific.
Customers from startups to enterprises to government organisations and nonprofits will be able to use advanced technologies from the world’s leading cloud provider to drive innovation, reduce costs, and accelerate transformation.
