Cloud Hosting

By Mauro Orru

Amazon.com plans to invest 15.7 billion euros ($17.04 billion) over the next decade to expand its cloud services in Spain, the latest pledge from the U.S. tech giant to bolster its presence in Europe at a time of growing demand for cloud and data services.

Amazon Web Services, the group's cloud-computing arm, said the investment would help it expand cloud infrastructure in Aragon, a landlocked region in northeastern Spain where AWS already has a presence. The company launched services there in late 2022 for users to directly store their data in Spain.

The group last year laid out plans for an independent sovereign cloud service in Europe, saying the project would help public sector organizations and customers in highly regulated industries to navigate evolving data-storage requirements.

In 2021, AWS had planned to pour EUR2.5 billion into Spain. The latest 10-year investment represents a more than sixfold increase to AWS's initial plan. Jorge Azcon, president of the regional government in Aragon, said the announcement was the largest investment from a company in the history of Aragon.

Amazon estimates the funding will support about 17,500 jobs a year in local businesses in industries including construction, facilities maintenance, engineering and telecommunications, adding roughly EUR21.6 billion to Spain's gross domestic product through to 2033.

The announcement comes one week after AWS said it would invest EUR7.8 billion through 2040 to expand its cloud services in Germany, with the first launch of its AWS European Sovereign Cloud project expected to take place in the state of Brandenburg by the end of 2025.

Write to Mauro Orru at mauro.orru@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 22, 2024 09:32 ET (13:32 GMT)

Link:
Amazon to Invest $17 Billion in Spanish Cloud Infrastructure - Morningstar