When keeping data in New Zealand is a legal requirement and when it is a procurement preference — with the Auckland AWS and Azure regions, NZ sovereign clouds and local-first as real options.

dgm is an independent osFoundry integration partner — not affiliated with the company that makes osFoundry, and dgm has not yet completed any client integrations. This article describes services dgm offers, not past results.

‘Keeping data in New Zealand’ is sometimes a legal requirement and often a procurement preference. Either way, it is now achievable, because in-country cloud regions are live.

Key points

  • The Privacy Act doesn’t generally mandate NZ-only storage, but IPP 12 governs offshore disclosure
  • AWS Asia Pacific (New Zealand) ap-southeast-6 has been GA since September 2025
  • Azure New Zealand North is GA; Google Cloud has no NZ region
  • NZ-owned providers (Catalyst Cloud, Datacom, CCL) are also options

The detail

osFoundry’s managed cloud can pin data to its US, EU or Japan regions — there is no managed New Zealand region (the nearest managed options are Australia or Japan). If you need data to stay in New Zealand, the practical options are real today: AWS Asia Pacific (New Zealand), region ap-southeast-6 in Auckland, has been generally available since 1 September 2025, and Microsoft Azure New Zealand North (newzealandnorth, Auckland) is generally available — so you can self-host osFoundry in your own in-country cloud account (BYO cloud), or run it local-first on your own infrastructure. Google Cloud has no New Zealand region (the nearest is Sydney, australia-southeast1). There are also NZ-owned sovereign providers — Catalyst Cloud, Datacom and CCL/Revera — that keep data under New Zealand ownership and law. One caveat worth stating plainly: the US CLOUD Act (2018) lets US authorities compel data held by US-headquartered providers regardless of where it is physically stored, so an Auckland AWS or Azure region improves physical location and helps with the Privacy Act 2020 but does not by itself remove the jurisdictional exposure of a US-parent provider. Physical residency is not the same as jurisdictional sovereignty — verify the right region and provider for your own risk profile.

Where this leaves your AI project

A model-agnostic platform like osFoundry helps you meet these obligations in practice — you can keep data in New Zealand (an Auckland region or local-first), control model choice via BYOK, and connect to your own systems. dgm can help you scope and implement with this in mind.

How dgm can help

dgm is an independent integration partner that helps New Zealand organisations put osFoundry to work — from choosing a worthwhile first use case through to the hands-on build and connecting it to the systems you already run. dgm is not affiliated with the company that makes osFoundry, and it has not yet completed any client integrations, so what is described here is the service dgm offers, not past results. If you want help scoping a realistic first project, dgm can work through it with you.

This article is general information only and is not legal, tax or investment advice. Rates, caps and programme status change — confirm the current position with the relevant official body or a licensed adviser before you act.