Latest / Best of Business / Manuel Bohnet: Amazon Web Services' NZ country manager on Amazon's $7.5 billion investment plan for New Zealand

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Manuel Bohnet: Amazon Web Services' NZ country manager on Amazon's $7.5 billion investment plan for New Zealand · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks be follow
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  Speaker 2: Amazon has today unveiled its data centers. It's committed to
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  Speaker 2: invest more than seven and a half billion dollars in
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  Speaker 2: New Zealand. Manual Bonnett is Amazon's Web Services New Zealand
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  Speaker 2: country manager and with us Manuel Hello, Hello Heather. What
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  Speaker 2: are you spending the seven and a half billion dollars on?
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  Speaker 3: Well, we just announced the launch of our AWS Asia
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  Speaker 3: Pacific New Zealand Region, and of course a big part
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  Speaker 3: of the investment will be in this region. The region
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  Speaker 3: is a cluster of data centers, so as you would expect,
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  Speaker 3: there is hardware, software, but also energy and people to
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  Speaker 3: run these data centers. Of course.
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  Speaker 2: Oh I see, So it's not seven and a half
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  Speaker 2: billion for New Zealand. It's seven and a half billion
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  Speaker 2: for Asia Pacific.
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  Speaker 3: No, No, it's seven and a half billion for New Zealand.
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  Speaker 3: The region is here. We just called a region, the
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  Speaker 3: Asia Pacific New Zealand Region, but it's the local region
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  Speaker 3: as local as.
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  Speaker 2: It gets, okay, And so this is just for running
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  Speaker 2: the data center. Is that's how much it costs to
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  Speaker 2: run them.
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  Speaker 3: Is it? That's the investor. So it's hardware and software.
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  Speaker 3: We obviously bring hardware, our own hardware to New Zealand,
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  Speaker 3: but we also invest in software, and then we have
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  Speaker 3: operational cost like the energy, the personnel, the people to
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  Speaker 3: run it. So overall it's a big investment. And next
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  Speaker 3: to that, next to the seven and a half billion
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  Speaker 3: that you mentioned, we are also expecting to support a
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  Speaker 3: thousand new jobs, and we are really investing in building skills.
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  Speaker 3: So skills are really important because next to technology, we
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  Speaker 3: really want to make sure that we train and upskill
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  Speaker 3: the people using it.
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  Speaker 2: So I noticed that you guys had pledged seven and
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  Speaker 2: a half billion dollars in twenty twenty one. Have you
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  Speaker 2: already burned through that seven and a half and this
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  Speaker 2: is another seven and a half No, we.
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  Speaker 3: Are actually confirming that number. Right, So we have now
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  Speaker 3: announced the region to be live nice of many day.
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  Speaker 2: No, right, are you telling me this is the same
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  Speaker 2: amount of money that you announced four years ago with
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  Speaker 2: just and.
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  Speaker 3: Our don Yeah, we are confirming the number, and we
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  Speaker 3: are announcing that now the infrastructure investment that we made
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  Speaker 3: is live as of today, and that there is more
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  Speaker 3: to come in terms of the jobs that we have confirmed,
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  Speaker 3: and also the skills investment that I just mentioned.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, have you built any data centers?
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  Speaker 3: So a region is a cluster of data centers, and
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  Speaker 3: of course we have chosen the locations that we choose
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  Speaker 3: to build out our availability zones. The region consists of
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  Speaker 3: multiple availability zones. We have three of these availability zones
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  Speaker 3: here and of course that involves data centers.
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  Speaker 2: Cool and how many of these have you actually built
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  Speaker 2: as opposed to renting or leasing?
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  Speaker 3: So we are choosing facilities based on the needs that
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  Speaker 3: we have, and we have thirty eight of these regions globally.
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  Speaker 2: So exactly what you're being weirried about this, aren't you Manuel?
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  Speaker 2: Because you haven't built any have you?
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  Speaker 3: I'm telling you we chose now the locations that are
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  Speaker 3: the best looking.
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  Speaker 2: What happened? Why didn't you guys build it wasn't that
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  Speaker 2: part of the announcement with just in the back in
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  Speaker 2: twenty twenty one that you were going to.
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  Speaker 3: Build some Well, we always take a long term view
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  Speaker 3: and as part of that we look at all the
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  Speaker 3: options and I'm super happy that we found the right
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  Speaker 3: locations for the region to be live as of today.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, what happened to the West Aukland one where you
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  Speaker 2: flattened it. You got rid of the wetland. Are you
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  Speaker 2: gonna build anything there?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I mean for now, we are announcing that the
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  Speaker 3: region is live, so the availability zones at the manual.
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  Speaker 2: I just need to tell you, mate, Listen. This audience
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  Speaker 2: that listens to this is really smart and they can hear.
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  Speaker 2: You're not answering the question. So you can keep on
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  Speaker 2: with that strategy.
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  Speaker 1: If you want to.
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  Speaker 2: But I need to warn you. We know you're not
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  Speaker 2: answering my question. I'm going to try it again. What
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  Speaker 2: are you doing with the West Akland site? Are you
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  Speaker 2: going to build anything there?
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  Speaker 3: I can't comment on the site. I'm basically I'm announcing
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  Speaker 3: the launch of the region and the side, as you
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  Speaker 3: can tell, is not part of it.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, thanks mate, appreciate it.
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  Speaker 1: Go well.
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  Speaker 2: Manuel Bonnette, New Zealand country manager, Amazon Web Services. Oh
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  Speaker 2: my gosh, guys, how bummed out are you about this announcement?
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  Speaker 2: I thought when I heard luxing on with Hosking this morning,
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  Speaker 2: I thought this was awesome. I was like, yay, seven
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  Speaker 2: and a half billion dollars is the same money that
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  Speaker 2: they announced with Jacinda just four years ago, and how
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  Speaker 2: many what is this announcement of an announcement? And also
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  Speaker 2: you should go check out the west Auckland site. Year
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  Speaker 2: they've smashed the thing down. There's nothing going up there,
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  Speaker 2: sounds like sounds like they haven't built a single data center.
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  Speaker 2: They've basically gone and hired other people's data centers, which
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  Speaker 2: is not really helping is it's not helping the situations
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  Speaker 2: those data centers would have been there before anyway. Whatever.
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