Amazon’s $7.5b New Zealand investment: What’s real and what’s not
Tuesday, 2 September 2025
Amazon and Prime Minister Christopher Luxon celebrated a $7.5 billion announcement, set to employ 1000 people. But where are the jobs, and where is that money? Glenn McConnell has tried breaking down the figures.
The excitement was palpable, and the performance was next-level when Amazon announced the launch of New Zealand data centres on Monday morning.
Smoke machines signalled the start of the presentation, as mana whenua from Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei performed on stage. The stalls of Auckland’s Aotea Centre were packed with Amazon’s clients and tech professionals, who cheered as Amazon’s New Zealand manager Manuel Bohnet announced the company’s plan to invest here.
“Today, I am very excited to announce the launch of our AWS Asia Pacific New Zealand Region here at Cloud Day in Tāmaki Makaurau,” Bohnet said.
The company had sold this announcement as a huge investment, worth $7.5 billion with the potential to employ 1000 people. But it also announced that same plan back in 2021.
On Tuesday, when Amazon Web Services (AWS) officially launched its cloud services based in Auckland, it wasn’t quite clear where exactly that $7.5 billion was being spent, who was being employed, or what had happened to its much hyped 2021 plan for state of the art data centres.
At the time, it planned to build a state-of-the-art data centre in West Auckland. That facility has not been built.
When Stuff visited the site on Tuesday afternoon, which sits near Costco and Microsoft’s hyperscale data centre in Westgate, there was nothing there.
$7.5 billion is a huge number for New Zealand. So huge that when Prime Minister Christopher Luxon joined Bohnet on stage, he repeated that figure twice.
“I have to say, the investment today by AWS of $7.5 billion New Zealand dollars - let me just say that again, $7.5 billion from AWS in New Zealand - has been well flagged, but it is a great example of how we need to welcome companies,” he said.
“That investment is immense and it is historic. It will have a significant impact on our GDP. It will create up to 1000 jobs. And it will deliver an almost $11 billion boost to our GDP,” he added.
Four years later…
When Amazon first started this New Zealand project, then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was directly involved.
Documents, released under the Official Information Act, showed AWS writing to Ardern, receiving a response, and holding multiple meetings with her, other ministers, and officials regarding issues such as the Overseas Investment Act. When she travelled the US in 2022, Ardern met with AWS chief executive Adam Selipsky in Seattle, and discussed the project.
That same year, Amazon purchased two plots of land in Westgate. It purchased the third neighbouring plot at the start of this year.
Ardern’s work dealing with Amazon meant Labour reacted briskly when Luxon used Tuesday’s example as proof his economic plan was working.
He told the conference, “I think for way too long New Zealand has put the shudders up on investment… Well I have to tell you that has well and truly changed under this Government because we are open for business.”
Labour leader Chris Hipkins said he was “embarrassed” for Luxon.
“He’s the FIGJAM Prime Minister. He spends so much time and energy claiming everything Labour did was wrong, now he’s claiming Labour’s achievements as his own,” Hipkins said, using the acronym meaning ‘F… I’m Good, Just Ask Me’.
Where are the jobs?
The promise of 1000 jobs would be music to the ears of Aucklanders, living in a region struggling with the highest unemployment rate in the country. In the June quarter, 6.1% of Auckland was unemployed.
But it wouldn’t be Amazon hiring up to 1000 people.
Bohnet said that figure was an estimate of the “supply chain” they thought would be set up to cater to the data centres. That is they’ll be ‘creating’ jobs.
The types of jobs would vary, from people directly employed to secure and maintain the infrastructure. Amazon also appeared to be counting jobs from contracts, such as its 15-year deal with Mercury to provide electricity for the data centres.
Where are the data centres?
Property records showed Amazon Data Services New Zealand owned property around Westgate, but there was no sign of significant development there when Stuff visited.
A security guard watched as a Stuff photographer arrived to see the construction site, which had little sign of construction - although there was a porta-loo, fencing, and a roller at the site.
In 2023, Newsroom reported that Auckland Council had processed two resource consents to turn this site into a giant data centre.
Bohnet wouldn’t comment on the Westgate project and wouldn’t say where the data centres were.
“We are not disclosing the exact location of these data centres, obviously, for security reasons. But they are in and around Auckland, with enough distance to withstand a scenario like flooding or power outages, but close enough for low latency,” he said.
Later, a spokesperson refused to confirm if Amazon had built any data centres. Those working in the tech industry told Stuff that Amazon had, instead, leased infrastructure from other companies already set up in Auckland.
So where, and when, is the $7.5 billion being spent?
With construction stalled, and no confirmation from Amazon that it would continue with its plan to build a data centre in West Auckland, it wasn’t immediately clear how the company planned to spend $7.5 billion.
That is the same figure Amazon used in 2021, when it announced its plan. Clearly, the costs of construction, wages, and electricity have changed since then.
Originally, Amazon said it planned to spend the $7.5 billion between 2021 and 2036.
But on Tuesday, Bohnet wouldn’t say what the time frame was. “I can’t confirm that,” he said, when asked whether they were still working to that 15-year time line.
The one big cost he did discuss was Amazon’s deal with Mercury Energy.
In 2023, Amazon signed a 15-year deal with Mercury to buy 51 megawatts of electricity. That meant Amazon had the right to draw down 0.5% of the country’s entire energy use at any time.
The deal was so significant that Bohnet said it led to Mercury scaling up its Turitea wind farm in Palmerston North.
“The long term agreement we have with Mercury is part of the reason the Turitea South Wind Farm was actually built at the size and scale that it operates now,” Bohnet said.
In 2022, Ardern had sold New Zealand as a place for green business. AWS referenced that renewable energy as a reason it wanted to build a power-hungry data centre in New Zealand, and Bohnet talked about the importance of green energy again on Tuesday.
In the last few years, however, the price of power has increased - and the Government has been looking to expand gas and coal generation.