Peter MacDonald
The recent announcement that Amazon Web Services (AWS) is investing $7.5 billion into New Zealand highlights the transformative potential of cloud computing. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon stated this investment could create up to 1,000 jobs and boost the country’s GDP by nearly $11 billion. Amazon, one of the world’s largest companies, dwarfs New Zealand’s economy, yet this investment presents an opportunity for small businesses to harness world-class infrastructure for growth.
AWS, now overseen by a professional management team rather than its founder Jeff Bezos, is not a subsidiary of Google. Instead, it operates as Amazon’s cloud division, offering services that store, manage and process data online rather than on local computers. In practical terms, a cloud service allows businesses to operate virtually, without the need for physical offices, filing cabinets or extensive administrative staff.
For a small cottage industry like mine, producing bags and belts, the cloud offers transformative possibilities. Orders can be taken, processed and paid for entirely online. Inventory, product images, receipts and job sheets can all be stored and accessed digitally. From a single desktop computer or smartphone, one can manage an entire virtual office and reach customers worldwide.
AWS operates on a pay-as-you-go model. New users can take advantage of the free tier, and services like virtual servers, storage and databases can be tailored to the needs of a small business. While physical infrastructure is finite and bound by resources, the services themselves, from AI tools to serverless applications, can grow and evolve virtually without limit.
Some may ask why AWS needs to invest locally in New Zealand if services are already accessible online. The answer lies in speed, compliance, reliability and scalability. Local data centers act like substations in an electricity grid: they reduce latency, ensure data residency and provide alternative routing redundancy in case of international outages. Just as a substation boosts electricity for local homes, a local AWS data centre ensures faster and more reliable cloud services for New Zealand businesses.
AWS’s model is self-reinforcing and replicable. Each data centre attracts more customers, which funds further expansion and creates new revenue streams and technological branches. New Zealand is only one node in a global network, with future expansions planned in Australia, Taiwan, Chile, Mexico, Thailand and Saudi Arabia. Even when physical limits are reached, AI service evolution will continue upgrades, AI-driven tools and analytics. Cloud innovations can expand infinitely.
Viewed through an allegorical lens, AWS resembles a grapevine: the trunk and its roots represents finite physical infrastructure, while the branches symbolise services that continually grow, improve and generate new revenue. In this sense, the system has the potential to act as a global machine: autonomously scaling and evolving over decades. Though it may become self-replicating in its operations, it remains non-sentient.
Historically, this resonates with the 1961 Twilight Zone episode “The Obsolete Man”, where a society declares individuals useless if they cannot serve a productive function. Today, as automation, AI and cloud systems take over traditional roles, similar questions about human value and purpose arise.
Yet, despite its growth, the vulnerability of AWS lies in its trunk: the physical infrastructure. Interruptions of power, connectivity or hardware can destabilise the entire system. Redundancy, distributed availability zones and failover systems mitigate risks, but the finite backbone remains the Achilles’ heel.
Biblically, the analogy becomes striking. AWS mirrors the statue in Daniel 2: the head of gold represents dominance, the legs of brass and iron expansion and structural strength and the feet of iron and clay, standing on sand, symbolise the vulnerable foundation. It is not inherently wrong to generate wealth or create large-scale enterprises, but the cost must always be considered. Building empires for the sake of growth or dominance can become self-reinforcing – almost cult-like – where the pursuit of scale overshadows human wellbeing, creativity and individuality. AWS exemplifies this tension: its services can empower, but the system itself operates with a logic that prioritises expansion, efficiency and market capture above all else.
For small creators like myself, the lesson is cautionary. While the technology exists to amplify effort to a global scale, engaging with it uncritically risks feeding a machine that treats humans as inputs rather than as individuals. My cottage workshop, limited in scope and bound by personal purpose rather than profit, becomes a quiet form of resistance: a reminder that not all human work needs to be maximised, monetised or subsumed into the machinery of empire.
Just as the statue’s seemingly unstoppable empire is built on a fragile base, so too is AWS’s global cloud infrastructure, as it is dependent on finite, physical resources.
