Amazon Announces Further Cloud Investments Of Nearly $9 Billion In Singapore

As the world dives deeper into AI-powered tools and embraces cloud environments to facilitate efficient training for artificial intelligence models and better business workflows, cloud providers find themselves investing to upgrade their infrastructure across the globe.

Over the last few months, some of the world’s largest companies have ventured into the region looking to expand their services, with NVIDIA’s CEO Jensen Huang visiting Singapore, Vietnam and Malaysia, while Apple’s CEO Tim Cook traveled to Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia.

Additionally, OpenAI and its primary backer, Microsoft, announced enhanced AI products and services and cloud infrastructure improvements in Japan, while Google and Oracle followed suit.

Microsoft also announced plans to make investments in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia to improve its AI and cloud offerings.

Now, adding to its investments in Japan, Saudi Arabia and Mexico, Amazon is also venturing further into the Asia Pacific region as it looks to enhance its cloud offerings in the region, which came as an announcement by the company.

So, what did Amazon say? Let’s explore!
 

What Did Amazon Announce?

 

• Amazon’s AWS (Amazon Web Services) announced it would be pouring an additional S$12 billion ($8.8 billion) over the next five years (2024-2028) into Singapore, to grow its cloud infrastructure and services in the country and surrounding region.

• The announcement came as part of an AWS ASEAN Summit held in Singapore.

• This builds on the country’s previous investments of S$11.5 billion ($8.8 billion) in the Asia Pacific Region, which began in 2010 and marked the company’s first expansion outside the US and Europe.

• This move takes its total investment to over S$23 billion ($17 billion).

• AWS also mentioned a collaboration with the Singapore government, public sector organizations and enterprises to boost the adoption of AI and GenAI in the country.

• The company also conveyed that it trained more than 400,000 people in the country to transfer cloud skills since 2017 and will continue to build on that.

• As such, AWS will also focus on digitalization for organizations in the region, focusing on cloud services and AI capabilities.

• This adds to the company’s previous plans of investing $5 billion in Thailand over 15 years, which was announced in October 2022 and $6 billion in Malaysia by 2037 announced in March 2023.

 

What Did Stakeholders Say?

 

• Priscilla Chong, Country Manager of AWS Singapore, said, “The investment will go into the construction and build up of the DC capabilities, all associating with the Asia-Pacific Singapore region.”

• [Contd.] “Starting with our investment in Singapore in 2010, AWS has continued to strengthen their commitment to the ASEAN region, sharing the uplift [in] digital skills across the nations, providing secure and resilient infrastructure consistently across the region.”

• Chong also said, “AWS is doubling down on its cloud infrastructure investments in Singapore from 2024 to 2028 to support customer demand, and help reinforce Singapore’s status as an attractive regional innovation launchpad,” and added, “This investment will create a ripple effect across Singapore by increasing economic growth and cloud adoption.”

• Tan Kiat How, Senior Minister of State at Singapore’s Ministry of Communications and Information, said, “Cloud service providers like AWS play an important role in improving the digital economy ecosystem.”

• [Contd.] Besides being a foundational digital infrastructure for organizations, cloud service providers enable enterprises to easily access digital resources like compute and storage, as well as advanced capabilities like AI and generative AI.”

Do you think this move by Amazon will help it grow its market share in the region? Do you think its competitors should make similar moves?

Let us know in the comments below!