Local data centre market to get $20B Amazon investment boost
Funding to drive AI and cloud capabilities and improve productivity and innovation.
The local data centre market is set to get a significant injection of funds, with $20 billion to be invested by Amazon between 2025 and 2029 to expand data centres in Sydney and Melbourne.
The investment will support cloud and AI capabilities for Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers and partners to drive innovation at scale.
“This planned investment deepens our long-term commitment to supporting the growth and development of Australian organisations of all sizes and helping them harness the enormous opportunity that generative AI offers,” said Matt Garman, CEO of AWS.
Amazon has pledged to support local data residency and regulatory requirements. Australian data protection frameworks include the Privacy Principles and Privacy Act and the Notifiable Data Breaches (NDB) scheme, with stricter rules for healthcare, finance and government.
The announcement was made with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese who said the government expects the investment to generate economic opportunity, including skilled jobs and infrastructure that can support complex AI and supercomputing applications.
“This is the largest investment our country has seen from a global technology provider, and is an exciting opportunity for Australia to build AI capability using secure, resilient infrastructure,” the prime minister said.
Amazon said the new investment will help build national AI capability and support the government’s goal to lift productivity and support AI innovation.
“The investment will support the strong growth in customer and partner demand for cloud computing and artificial intelligence, accelerating AI adoption and capability, and the continued modernisation of Australian organizations of all sizes,” a spokesperson told CRN Australia.
Amazon also plans to invest in three new solar farms in Victoria and Queensland, adding to the eight solar and wind projects across New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria, to help power its local operations.
Once all 11 renewable energy projects are operational, they are estimated to generate more than 1.4 million megawatt hours of carbon-free energy annually.
The data centre investment follows the recent launch of AWS AI Spring Australia, an initiative to accelerate AI adoption and capability across startups and enterprises.
It also comes after the government last year announced a partnership with AWS to provide cloud innovation in national security and defence, and enhance the nation's defence and intelligence capabilities.