E-commerce and cloud computing giant Amazon (AMZN) has announced a $4.4 billion (NZ$7.5 billion) investment to build and operate data centers in New Zealand, supporting the launch of cloud services in the South Pacific nation. Amazon Web Services (AWS) will establish the AWS Asia Pacific (New Zealand) Region to help organizations run their AI applications.
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Amazon Aims to Strengthen AI Infrastructure in New Zealand
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon stated that AWS’s investment in the country is the largest announced by any global tech company and will have a major impact on its gross domestic product (GDP).
In particular, AWS’s $4.43 billion investment would support over 1,000 full-time jobs and add about NZ$10.8 billion to the country’s GDP. Amazon said that the new AWS region would give existing customers such as Xero (AU:XRO) and Kiwibank “a home-grown option” to run workloads, store data locally, and deliver digital services with even lower latency, enabling them to develop new cloud-based products faster.
Amazon has committed a massive investment of up to $100 billion this year toward building data centers and software to capitalize on the significant demand for computing amid the ongoing AI wave.
Interestingly, Amazon is planning three more AWS regions in Chile, Saudi Arabia, and the AWS European sovereign cloud.
Is Amazon Stock a Buy, Sell, or Hold?
Wall Street is highly bullish on Amazon stock due to its dominant position in the e-commerce space, solid AI-led demand backdrop for AWS, and its rapidly growing advertising business.
Overall, Amazon stock scores a Strong Buy consensus rating based on 45 Buys and one Hold recommendation. The average AMZN stock price target of $263.95 indicates 15.3% upside potential.
