Amazon AWS To Invest $11B in UK, Support 14K Jobs Annually

U.K. Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed an 8 billion pound five-year investment from Amazon.Com Inc AMZN cloud computing unit Amazon Web Services.

The investment would support close to 14,000 jobs annually at local businesses, including those across the company’s data center supply chain.

AWS estimates that these investments in the U.K. will inject 14 billion pounds into the U.K.’s total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from 2024 to 2028.

AWS eyes $10.5 billion (8 billion pounds) spending over the next five years in cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure in the U.K., the Wall Street Journal reports.

“We’ve seen a real uptake of cloud computing and AI technology by British businesses, and we know the U.K. has a very ambitious digital plan,” CNBC cites from an interview with AWS managing director Tanuja Randery.

AWS launched its cluster of data centers in the U.K. in December 2016. The latest announcement will bring AWS’s total planned investment in the country to over 11 billion pounds.

AWS reported 19% topline growth in the second quarter, reaching $26.3 billion. Amazon’s capital spending reached $17.62 billion in the second quarter, up 50% as it ramped up spending on data centers, real estate, and chips to accomplish its AI ambitions, similar to those of its Big Tech counterparts.

Since 2024, AWS has committed over $50 billion in overseas investments. It committed 7.8 billion euros to the AWS European Sovereign Cloud in Germany through 2040, which has the potential to sustain  2,800 full-time equivalent jobs annually in local German businesses. AWS earmarked $6.2 billion in Malaysia through 2038, which could support over 3,500 jobs annually.

JMP Securities analyst Nicholas Jones projected AWS’s upside, especially flagging the absence of capacity constraints in Microsoft Corp’s MSFT Azure business.

Price Action: AMZN stock is up 0.45% to $180.36 premarket at the last check on Wednesday.

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