New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern visits Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle – GeekWire

Amazon hosted New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Friday at its Seattle headquarters, where by she achieved with Amazon Website Products and services CEO Adam Selipsky.

As part of a U.S. tour that also bundled a reception with Microsoft executives in Seattle and a stop by on Tuesday with President Joe Biden, Ardern invested time inside Amazon’s plant-stuffed Spheres making and also spoke with Selipsky.

“We experienced a terrific discussion about digital transformation, techniques progress, sustainability, and how we are assisting corporations throughout Aotearoa, New Zealand scale and improve internationally,” Selipsky wrote on LinkedIn.

Amazon declared last calendar year that it would spend more than $5 billion around 15 several years on data facilities in New Zealand, exactly where it will launch a new AWS Region. The cloud arm has been active in New Zealand due to the fact 2014. Its community consumers include things like Air NZ, the New Zealand Ministry of Well being, University of Auckland, and much more.

Amazon’s worthwhile cloud company continues to enable Amazon’s base line it documented $14.8 billion in income for the next quarter, up 37% 12 months-about-year, and functioning money of $4.2 billion.

Selipsky, the former Tableau CEO, returned to AWS past year as its CEO after former AWS main Andy Jassy was named to thrive Jeff Bezos as Amazon CEO.

Ardern, who spoke at Harvard’s graduation on Thursday, also visited with Microsoft executives including Microsoft President Brad Smith on her go to to Seattle.

Microsoft not long ago introduced a new partnership with the country, and is also making info facilities in New Zealand.

Other tech and startup leaders from New Zealand joined Ardern on her pay a visit to to Seattle, which includes Sam Kidd, CEO of LawVu, which not long ago announced a new Seattle office.

“I’m fired up about continuing our investment listed here in Seattle,” Kidd wrote in a LinkedIn post about his time in the Emerald Metropolis. “The unapologetic state of mind people today have here close to creating and growing a corporation is both of those exciting and refreshing. To have community launched companies the likes of Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon and Starbucks is remarkable. There is practically anything in the coffee in this article.”