Will significant economic benefits flow to NZ? (Image: Getty)Australian-based Nasdaq-listed “neocloud” operator Sharon AI (SHAZ) earlier this month announced a US$1.32 billion (NZ$2.28b), five-year deal with an unnamed “global AI lab” to deploy compute capacity in NZ.The news seemed to come out of nowhere and had a particularly muted reception in an environment where we are desperate for any foreign investment we can get. But it arrives amid mounting activity on the AI front locally, with Anthropic registering a company here, and Datagrid scoring a $53 million investment...