Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud division of the U.S. e-commerce giant, has unveiled plans to invest £8 billion ($10.45 billion) over the next five years to develop and operate data centers in the U.K., bolstering its cloud computing capabilities in the region.
The investment, announced early Wednesday in London, comes as cloud providers emphasize the advantages of generative artificial intelligence (AI), with businesses increasingly seeking to incorporate the technology into their operations.
“We’ve seen a real uptake of cloud computing and AI technology by British businesses, and we know the U.K. has a very ambitious digital plan,” Tanuja Randery, managing director for European, Middle East and Africa at AWS, told CNBC in an interview.
“So this will go toward helping our customers to be able to harness cloud computing because you need the data centers to be able to provide cloud computing for our customers.”
Randery said generative AI is “probably the most transformative technology we have seen, possibly since the cloud and the internet” and that businesses are currently trialing the nascent tech.
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“We’ve also seen that businesses are looking at this in terms of both revenue growth, employee productivity, which is critical, as you know, but also being able to compete globally.”
AWS, along with other cloud providers, has been making significant investments in infrastructure, including data centers and Nvidia chips, to support the training and operation of AI models. These companies then offer AI services to businesses.
In the U.K., AWS competes with Microsoft and Google, and this investment reflects its ongoing expansion efforts in Europe. Earlier this year, AWS announced plans to invest 8.8 billion euros in its existing cloud infrastructure in Germany.
This investment arrives amid increased scrutiny from U.K. regulators examining competition in the cloud market, with AWS and Microsoft under close review. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is currently investigating the U.K. cloud sector.
Randery noted that AWS is “working very constructively” with the CMA but emphasized the need for regulators to balance oversight with fostering innovation.
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