AWS lines up $12.7-bn investment

Hyderabad: Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Thursday announced plans to invest Rs1,05,600 crore ($12.7 billion) into cloud infrastructure in India by 2030 as it looks to meet growing customer demand for cloud services in the country.

The planned investment in data centre infrastructure in India will support an estimated average of 1,31,700 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs in Indian businesses each year, Amazon’s cloud computing unit, AWS, said in a statement. These positions, including construction, facility maintenance, engineering, telecommunications, and other jobs, are part of the data centre supply chain in India.

In the statement, AWS said it plans to invest Rs1,05,600 crore ($12.7 billion) into cloud infrastructure in India and added its long-term commitment in India will reach Rs1,36,500 crore ($16.4 billion) by 2030. This follows AWS’ investment of Rs30,900 crore ($3.7 billion) between 2016 and 2022, which will bring AWS’ total investment in India to Rs1,36,500 crore ($16.4 billion) by 2030.

“This investment is estimated to contribute Rs1,94,700 crore ($23.3 billion) to India’s total gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030,” the statement said.

AWS added that its investment in India has a ripple effect in the local economy in areas, such as workforce development, training and skilling opportunities, community engagement, and sustainability initiatives. AWS has two data centre infrastructure regions in India -- the AWS Asia-Pacific (Mumbai) Region, launched in 2016, and the AWS Asia-Pacific (Hyderabad) Region, launched in November 2022.

“The two AWS Regions are designed to provide Indian customers with multiple options to run workloads with even greater resilience and availability, securely store data in India, and serve end-users with low latency,” it said.

AWS has invested more than Rs30,900 crore in the AWS Asia-Pacific (Mumbai) Region between 2016 and 2022. This included both capital and operating expenditures associated with constructing, maintaining, and operating the data centres in that region. Its overall contribution to the GDP of India between 2016 and 2022 was more than Rs38,200 crore ($4.6 billion), and the investment supported nearly 39,500 FTE jobs annually in Indian businesses, AWS estimates.

“PM Narendra Modi’s Digital India vision is driving expansion of cloud & data centres in India,” Minister of state for electronics and information technology Rajeev Chandrashekhar said. The latest investment will catalyse India's digital economy. “MeitY is also working on a Cloud and Data Centre Policy to catalyse innovation, sustainability, and growth of India Cloud,” the minister said.

Puneet Chandok, president of commercial business - AWS India and South Asia at Amazon Web Services India, said the planned investment of Rs1,05,600 crore by 2030 will help create more beneficial ripple effects, supporting India on its path to becoming a global digital powerhouse.”

AWS observed that hundreds of thousands of its customers in India run their workloads on AWS to drive cost savings, accelerate innovation, and increase speed time to market. This includes government entities such as Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, public healthcare institutions like Aarogyasri Health Care Trust, large Indian enterprises such as Ashok Leyland, Axis Bank, HDFC Life and Titan, small and medium businesses like Havmor, Qube Cinema, and Narayana Nethralaya, and startups like BankBazaar, HirePro, M2P, and Yubi, among others. AWS also helps several Indian businesses build digital solutions locally that can be scaled globally through the AWS Partner Network (APN) where Indian partners can use programmes, expertise, and resources to build, market, and sell customer offerings. The APN in India includes organisations, such as Minfy Technologies, Rapyder Cloud Solutions, and Redington, it said.