After listing these, the AWS executive, whose name and position are blanked out, told Ardern, “As an immediate next step I hope that senior AWS representatives in New Zealand could meet with you and appropriate ministers to discuss this proposal in more detail.”

It is not clear what became of that request, or whether the other five issues it raised were addressed as a result of AWS’s letter.

Ardern met with top leaders at Amazon and Microsoft in the US in May this year.

AWS needed approval from the Overseas Investment Office (OIO), and got that in March this year.

“We would be grateful for the support of the New Zealand Government in facilitating, as appropriate, the timely consideration of consent applications to support the earliest possible infrastructure launch,” it said in its September 2021 letter, saying AWS would commence the application.

The OIO in granting the consent on 25 March for a ‘significant business assets only’ consent, said, “The applicant has satisfied the investor test and national interest test criteria”. The OIO’s timeframe to assess this type of consent is 35 working days.

AWS said in the 2021 letter it wanted to replace its cloud framework agreement with the government.

A new agreement that allows eligible government agencies to buy public cloud services from AWS under standardised terms kicked off in July this year.

Jobs, water, energy

AWS has embarked on IT training, including at polytechs, aimed to cover 20,000 trainees a year for five…