AWS will invest as much as 8 billion British pounds (9.5 billion euros) over the next five years to build, run and maintain its own data centers based in the United Kingdom.
With the new investments, the tech giant aims to expand its data center capacity in the UK, Reuters writes. Since 2022, AWS has steadily invested more in its UK data centers. It has already poured 3 billion pounds in data centers in London and Manchester so far.
According to AWS, the upcoming investments should also significantly contribute to the British economy. The new capacity would contribute a total of 14 billion pounds to Britain’s gross domestic product by 2028, and the investments should also create more than 14,000 jobs at British companies.
Due to security reasons, the location of the new data center capacity has not been disclosed. According to AWS, new data centers will be built in places that meet certain conditions. The British government is talking with the cloud giant about investing in other parts of the country in addition to the currently used regions.
More European investments
The UK is not the only European country where AWS is significantly expanding its data center capacity. Earlier this year, the company announced it was investing 15.7 billion euros in Spanish data centers and another 7.8 billion euros in its data centers in Germany. Italy is also getting additional AWS data centers.
The possible trigger for AWS’ new investments in its own European data center capacity is that large companies want to spend more money on cloud infrastructure again. This is in contrast to 2023, when they more often chose not to go ahead with such investments.
According to experts, a major reason for the renewed interest in cloud infrastructure is companies’ interest in applying AI solutions to their own operations. The need for European Sovereign Cloud capacity may also play a role.
Also read: AWS puts 7.8 billion into expansion European Sovereign Cloud