December marks a year since Microsoft opened its first New Zealand hyperscale cloud region. At the time, we promised it would have significant impacts for Kiwi organisations looking to scale their businesses to the world, or deliver more for their customers and society. We’re delighted to have seen that come to life over the past 12 months, as we’ve worked alongside our customers and partners.
Stories range from the transformational: our partnership with Spark to accelerate its AI strategy, optimise business operations, modernise its network, unlock new opportunities and deliver better customer services. To the aspirational: working alongside Te Pūkenga to help provide employment opportunities in the creative sector. To the truly inspirational: seeing Whakarongorau Aotearoa embedding AI across its entire organisation to boost access to vital health services and lead in exploring the potential of AI agents to support human teams.
A year on, the datacentre region has become a foundation for Aotearoa’s emerging AI economy, giving organisations the scale, security and local data residency they need to innovate with confidence.
Empowering Kiwis with AI and digital skills
New Zealand’s tech companies and exports are growing, and the next significant opportunity for the country is focused on growing jobs on-shore. A skilled workforce is essential if New Zealand is to capture the productivity gains and new jobs emerging from AI adoption.
We have committed to upskilling 100,000 New Zealanders to take advantage of the digital economy by 2027. A key milestone in this journey is partnering with New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology (NZIST) – Te Pūkenga, and Auckland Council to support the Te Puna Creative Hub. This programme recognises the growth potential of West Auckland’s creative sector and supports students, teachers and job seekers to earn technology-focused micro credentials.
We should be doing all we can to equip and prepare workers with the right, sought-after skills, and build their confidence to innovate across sectors using AI and other digital technologies. The more we support these capabilities, we are able to boost employment, innovation and opportunities across the economy – and we look forward to doing even more in 2026.
Innovation taking shape
Microsoft is also working with tech companies like Spark to embed AI across their business. We were proud to announce the country’s largest-ever Microsoft public cloud partnership with Spark, this year, positioning the business to grow new revenue streams as it transitions into an AI-powered enterprise. Since then, it has rolled out Copilot to 2,500 people across the organisation, empowering workers to leverage the benefits of AI within their operations and to better support their customers.
Across sectors we are seeing teams like Spark’s use modern tools to improve services while keeping people at the centre. These early signals show how cloud capability can lift quality, efficiency and confidence without losing the human connection that matters in Aotearoa, and research released this year points to the scale of opportunity ahead.
Microsoft has been investing in research to help New Zealand and New Zealanders identify where the biggest opportunities lie, especially in an AI world. Organisations across industry, including NZ North tenants ACC and Techion, are already innovating and collaborating between sectors. This year, Christchurch City Council’s major cloud migration project allowed their people to better understand locals’ needs, modernising their systems to improve their service offering.
Public cloud also advances New Zealand’s climate goals. Microsoft’s New Zealand datacenter region uses 100 per cent renewable energies thanks to a deal with Contact Energy, while operating on a closed-loop cooling system that takes no water to cool its servers. Switching to renewable, efficient cloud technologies like these could reduce the public sector’s carbon footprint by 11 per cent – the equivalent of taking 14,000 cars off the road.
Whakarongorau supports the “people who help people”
The benefits are just as valuable for society. Whakarongorau Aotearoa is New Zealand’s national telehealth service providing free, 24/7 triage, prevention, and wellbeing services. They have already seen significant cost benefits from migrating to the datacenter region, saving $10,000 a month in technology and admin costs. However, the real impact goes much deeper.
Moving its data to the datacenter region has enabled insights that will ensure resources are deployed on the channels with the highest demand at any given time.
Whakarongorau is also celebrating a milestone – ten years since Whakarongorau Aotearoa, Health NZ and partners, including Microsoft, came together to deliver national telehealth services, putting health and wellbeing support within reach of every New Zealander.
The collective innovation, commitment and care has built a national safety net ensuring all New Zealanders can access the right support, at the right time. As the health system faces increasing pressure, telehealth services are more essential than ever. They support emergency services, reduce demand on hospitals, and help people navigate their health journeys.
Anna Campbell, Whakarongorau Aotearoa Chief Support Services Officer, says: “We’ve shifted from having the ambition to do more with data for personal care, to actually being able to do it. We have deployed a host of AI tools like Copilot that put hours back into our people’s days. For example, three quarters of our Copilot users report a strong productivity lift. Upcoming Fabric integrations will slash reporting from a week, to just 30 minutes. For a small team like ours, that matters.”
Microsoft is now working with Whakarongorau Aotearoa to help it unlock further capacity. AI agents are being developed as a welcome tool to provide immediate, non-clinical assistance to people in call, text or chat queues. Empathetic responses will keep people engaged until a human is available. These AI tools are not replacing human care – they are strengthening it by reducing administrative load and giving frontline specialist teams more time and space to focus on providing care to people.
Says Anna: “For our teams, engaging with people in need of support is the priority, and it’s important they’re able to connect quickly. While having a human in the loop is essential in a healthcare or mental health setting, it’s about how we enhance the work they’re doing through technology. We’re excited to have been selected recently as part of the Mental Health Innovation Fund, to employ new tools like agentic AI to help connect more people with the services they need.”
Aotearoa’s innovation journey is just beginning
The anniversary is also a reminder that real transformation takes time. New Zealand organisations tend to move slowly but deliberately, testing what new technology can enable before scaling it, and the datacentre region has given them room to do that safely. Over the past year we have seen teams strengthen their data foundations, build confidence with emerging AI tools and modernise systems that support everyday services. This steady momentum reflects what matters most in Aotearoa, including people, equity, service quality and community impact.
The first year of NZ North has shown what becomes possible when modern cloud capability meets Kiwi ingenuity. As more organisations build confidence with cloud and AI, New Zealand is well positioned to shape an innovation story that improves lives, strengthens communities and supports a more resilient digital future.
The next phase will focus on putting these foundations to work. More organisations will begin using AI assisted tools to streamline everyday processes, public services will make greater use of real time data, and partners will continue developing solutions tailored to New Zealand conditions. Cloud and AI will work more closely together, helping teams lift productivity and improve service quality in practical, measurable ways.
Through all of this, Microsoft’s focus remains steady. The aim is to support responsible innovation that aligns with Aotearoa’s values. That includes investing in secure and sustainable technology, strengthening partnerships with customers and communities, and helping people build the skills needed to navigate this next chapter with confidence. The momentum is growing, and we’re excited to see what happens in the next 12 months and beyond.
