Amazon’s AWS to invest nearly $9 billion in Singapore

SINGAPORE — Amazon On Tuesday, Web Services said it will invest an additional S$12 billion (about $8.87 billion) over the next five years to grow its cloud infrastructure and services in Singapore.

“The investment will go towards building and building DC capabilities all related to Singapore’s Asia Pacific region,” Priscilla Chong, managing director of AWS Singapore, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Tuesday.

The US tech giant’s cloud computing division has launched its own Singapore’s first Asia Pacific in 2010 – his first foray outside the US and Europe. Since then, AWS said it has poured more than S$11 billion into Singapore’s cloud infrastructure and ecosystem.

“Beginning with our investment in Singapore in 2010, AWS has continued to strengthen its commitment to the ASEAN region, sharing the boom [in] digital skills in nations, providing secure and sustainable infrastructure consistently across the region,” Chong said at a summit on Tuesday.

Chong added that the firm has trained more than 400,000 people in Singapore in cloud skills since 2017 and will “continue to invest in upskilling and improving productivity” across the country.

The AI ​​boom has led to a surge in demand for cloud computing services and data centers, as AI training models require massive amounts of data and the cloud provides access to massive data sets.

“Cloud service providers like AWS play an important role in improving the ecosystem of the digital economy. In addition to being the core digital infrastructure for organizations, cloud service providers allow enterprises to easily access digital resources such as compute and storage, as well as advanced capabilities such as AI and generative AI,” said Tan Kiat Hau, Sr. during the event Minister of State in the Ministry of Communications and Information of Singapore.

Tan said AWS will also help more organizations in Singapore embrace cloud services and AI capabilities as the region continues to see a “strong digitalisation push”.

Tan also noted that while the outlook for the digital economy remains positive, there simply aren’t “enough tech professionals” in Singapore or even globally.

AWS was the world’s largest cloud infrastructure provider in the first quarter, according to data from Synergy Research Group. AWS held a 31% share of the global cloud infrastructure market in the first quarter, down from 32% a year earlier. Microsoft Azure follows AWS in second place.

Just last week, Microsoft said it would make AI and cloud-related investments in several Southeast Asian countries – MalaysiaThailand and Indonesia – as it doubles in the region.

Amazon Web Services has also expanded its presence in Southeast Asia over the past few years.

It outlined plans in October 2022 to launch a region in Thailand with a $5 billion investment over 15 years and in March of last year he said he would commit at least $6 billion until 2037 in a new region in Malaysia. AWS opened a region in Jakarta in December 2021