Amazon to invest £8bn in AI infrastructure
1min read Amazon.com Inc. announced on September 11 local time that it would invest 8 billion pounds (about 74.5 billion yuan) in the UK over the next five years to build and operate data centers, according to Reuters.
The UK Treasury said that AWS's investment in data centers would support up to 14,000 jobs and contribute 14 billion pounds to the UK's gross domestic product (GDP) between 2024 and 2028.
The investment was good news for UK Treasury chief Rachel Reeves, who is trying to boost the UK's economic growth and tackle the public finance problems left by the previous Conservative government, the report said.
Reeves said in a statement from the Treasury: "This 8 billion pound investment marks the beginning of the UK's economic recovery, showing that the UK is a good place to do business." The Treasury also revealed that it was actively negotiating with AWS to explore further investment in other parts of the UK.
Tanuja Landry, managing director of AWS Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said the investment in the UK would help AWS's customers harness cloud computing, as only when data centers are built can they truly provide cloud services to customers. He also said that generative AI "could be the most disruptive technology since cloud computing and the internet", with many businesses trying out the new technology. Amazon has also found that businesses are trying to use generative AI to boost revenue growth and labor productivity.
Landry said the company considers a variety of factors when choosing data center locations around the world, including electricity supply, water resources and local environment. Landry emphasized that the use of artificial intelligence is one of the key factors driving the growth of cloud services.
CNBC reported that US tech giants such as Amazon have been investing heavily in data centers and chips from Nvidia Corp. in the US to train and run AI models, then selling AI services to customers.
AWS is not only competing with Microsoft Corp. and Google Inc. in the UK, but also expanding its business across Europe. The company said this year that it planned to invest 8.8 billion euros (about 69.1 billion yuan) in its existing cloud facilities in Germany.
It is worth noting that AWS announced its investment plan in the UK at a time when UK regulators are closely scrutinizing the competition between Amazon and Microsoft in the cloud market. Landry said AWS was cooperating constructively with the UK's Competition and Markets Authority, but the UK authorities need to balance regulation and innovation.
Amazon's strategy of focusing on AI infrastructure has boosted its stock price. This year, Amazon's stock price has risen 18%, outperforming the Nasdaq index and the stocks of Microsoft and Google.