A high-security data center in West Auckland, New Zealand, is set to open for operations soon.
The data center is being developed in partnership between the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) spy agency and the New Zealand Defence Force.
As reported by RNZ, it is set to be operational by the middle of this year.
The project has seen some NZ$300 million (US$178.7m) in investment and has been in the works since 2022. The data center, located at the Air Force Base in Whenuapai, will be used to house some of New Zealand’s most secret and sensitive public sector information.
The project was only revealed by the GCSB in 2023 “after security milestones had been achieved.”
While a lot of public agencies have opted for a cloud-first strategy, the GCSB has been clear since 2016 that it would not seek “any solution which involves non-sovereign hosting of data,” including facilities owned by foreign companies.
This differs significantly from Australia, which in 2024 revealed plans for Amazon Web Services to build a high-security government in the country in partnership with the Aussie government, which would invest A$2 billion (US$1.3 billion) in the new system over the next ten years.
The GCSB previously said in 2023 in response to a request made under the Official Information Act: “The data center is neither modeled on nor linked to an Australian center.
“We did, however, seek to draw learnings from selected international partners about their data centers, given this is the first instance where we have built such a facility, noting we have a unique environment and different requirements than international partners.”