AWS to invest over $15 bn in Japan to expand data centres

Tokyo, Jan 19 (IANS) Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud arm of e-commerce giant Amazon, on Friday announced that it will invest about $15.5 billion (about 2.3 trillion yen) in Japan over five years between 2023 and 2027.

The company will use the amount to expand data centres -- key facilities for cloud computing services -- and strengthen business operations, reports Nikkei Asia.

This comes on top of the 1.51 trillion yen (about $10.1 billion) that was invested in Japan to increase cloud capacity between 2011 and 2022.

The purpose behind this investment is to tap into the strong demand for cloud computing from Japanese companies and governments. The focus is on responding to generative AI, which is expected to expand in the future, the report noted.

In May last year, AWS announced plans to invest Rs 1,05,600 crore ($12.7 billion) into cloud infrastructure in India by 2030 to meet growing customer demand for cloud services in the country.

The investment followed AWS's investment of Rs 30,900 crore ($3.7 billion) between 2016-2022, bringing AWS's total investment in India to Rs 1,36,500 crore ($16.4 billion) by 2030.

AWS has two data centre infrastructure regions in India -- the AWS Asia Pacific (Mumbai) Region, launched in 2016, and the AWS Asia Pacific (Hyderabad) Region, launched in November 2022.