Amazon.com Inc plans to spend S$12 billion (US$8.86 billion) over the next four years to expand its cloud computing infrastructure in Singapore, Amazon Web Services (AWS) said yesterday.
The investment adds to the S$11.5 billion the company has already invested in the Asia-Pacific region until last year, bringing its total planned spending to more than S$23 billion by 2028, AWS said in a statement.
Southeast Asia’s top leaders are scrambling for a bigger slice of the global tech pie, with Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore hosting Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) in December last year, and Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook visiting Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia last month.
Photo: Reuters
Recent investments in the region include Apple’s plan to invest more than US$250 million into its operations in Singapore.
AWS also announced a collaboration with the Singaporean government, public sector organizations and enterprises to help accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI in Singapore, the statement 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,” AWS country manager Priscilla Chong said.
The announcement at the AWS ASEAN Summit in Singapore marks Amazon’s latest move in its plan to build AWS infrastructure across Southeast Asia. The company had previously announced a US$5 billion investment in Thailand and a US$6 billion spend in Malaysia.
Amazon’s announcement comes days after Microsoft Corp CEO Satya Nadella announced cloud services investments worth US$2.2 billion in Malaysia and US$1.7 billion in Indonesia during a visit to the region.
With a young tech-savvy population of 670 million, Southeast Asia has seen increasing interest from technology giants.
Reuters reported in December last year that Malaysian conglomerate YTL Corp Bhd’s utilities unit would partner with Nvidia to develop AI infrastructure in a US$4.3 billion investment deal.
On Monday, Malaysian Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry Tengku Zafrul Aziz said that Google was also planning to invest in the country with an announcement expected “in the near future,” a report by state news agency Bernama said.
Meanwhile, Indonesia is keen to have Huang visit again, with Indonesian Minister of Communication and Informatics Budi Arie Setiadi saying last month that they had invited him.
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