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Amazon plans to invest $12.7 billion in its cloud business in India by 2030, the e-commerce group said Thursday, as it moves to expand AWS infrastructure in the key foreign market at a time when it has scaled back several other services in the region.
The US giant, which previously invested $3.7bn in AWS infrastructure in India and currently maintains two data center regions in the South Asian market, said its spending will support 131,700 full-time jobs in roles such as engineering, telecommunications and construction.
Thursday’s announcement is a notable escalation in AWS’s initial strategy. The cloud giant had previously said that he will invest $4.4 billion in AWS in the South Asian economy.
India, the world’s second largest internet market, has witnessed a considerable increase in cloud adoption across various industries in recent years, reflecting the robust growth of the sector. Amazon’s cloud division occupies a dominant position in the market and boasts a list of prominent clients including India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Axis Bank, HDFC Life, BankBazaar, Niti Aayog, PhysicsWallah and Acko .
Google, which also has two cloud regions in India, and Microsoft, which maintains three, have also expanded their cloud businesses in the country in recent years. India’s overall public cloud services market is expected to reach $13 billion by 2026, according to researcher IDC.
“AWS is committed to creating a positive social and economic impact in India. In addition to building cloud infrastructure and helping local customers and partners digitally transform, we have trained more than four million people in India with cloud skills since 2017 and invested in six utility-scale renewable energy projects to meet our global goal of 100% renewable energy. by 2025,” Puneet Chandok, president of commercial business for AWS India and South Asia, said in a statement.
AWS’s planned investment will help create “more beneficial ripple effects, supporting India on its path to becoming a global digital powerhouse,” it added.
India is a key foreign market for Amazon, where it has invested more than $6.5 billion in the country’s e-commerce in the past decade. The tripling of the investment in AWS also exceeds the company’s expenses and commitments to its core e-commerce business.
The announcement also comes amid the closure of numerous Amazon businesses in India, a move that has led several analysts to question whether the US giant was reducing its presence in the country. Walmart, Amazon’s global rival, has also spent more than $2.5 billion in India this year.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Digital India vision is driving the expansion of cloud and data centers in India,” said Rajeev Chandrashekhar, India’s minister of state for electronics and information technology, skills development and entrepreneurship. , it’s a statement.
“India’s cloud and underlying data center infrastructure are important elements of India’s digital ecosystem and infrastructure. I welcome Amazon Web Services’ investment of $12.7 billion to expand its data centers in India. It will undoubtedly catalyze India’s digital economy. MeitY is also working on a cloud and data center policy to catalyze cloud innovation, sustainability and growth in India.”
