“Becoming a cloud region means that New Zealand businesses will have the choice to keep their data onshore (locally) and work with the national Google Cloud team to really drive the country’s digital transformation,” New Zealand Minister for the Digital Economy and Communications David Clark said Wednesday.
The decision was made as part of an independent due diligence of Google Cloud, he noted in a statement, saying it is not a government contract. The onshore cloud facilities offer stronger control of data in New Zealand because “it’s kept here, where our laws and protections apply,” he argued.
Amazon Web Services decided last September to establish a cloud region in New Zealand, while Microsoft Azure set up a cloud region in 2020, he recalled, adding that all these measures are likely to help the Oceanian country develop its digital economy.
The use of cloud computing allows companies and users to free themselves from the need to run software applications on their own equipment or manage physical servers themselves.
