By Press Trust of India | Updated: 18 May 2023
Amazon Web Services on Thursday announced plans to invest $12.7 billion (roughly Rs. 1,05,600 crore) in 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 Web Services (AWS) — Amazon’s cloud computing unit — 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.
AWS said it plans to invest Rs. 1,05,600 crore in cloud infrastructure in India and added its long-term commitment in the country will reach Rs. 1,36,500 crore ($16.4 billion) by 2030.
This follows AWS’ investment of Rs. 30,900 crore ($3.7 billion) between 2016 and 2022 which will bring its total investment in India to Rs. 1,36,500 crore ($16.4 billion) by 2030.
“This investment is estimated to contribute Rs. 1,94,700 crore ($23.3 billion) to India’s total gross domestic product by 2030,” the statement said.
AWS added that its investment in India has a ripple effect on the local economy in areas such as workforce development, training and skilling opportunities, community engagement and sustainability initiatives.
The company 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 Rs. 30,900 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.
It estimates that AWS’ overall contribution to India’s gross domestic product between 2016 and 2022 was more than Rs. 38,200 crore ($4.6 billion), and the investment supported nearly 39,500 FTE jobs annually in Indian businesses.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Digital India vision is driving (the) expansion of cloud and data centres in India,” Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said in the statement.
The latest investment will catalyse India’s digital economy.
“MeitY is also working on a Cloud and Data Center Policy to catalyse innovation, sustainability, and growth of India Cloud,” the minister said.
Puneet Chandok, president of commercial business, AWS India and South Asia, said the planned investment will “help create more beneficial ripple effects, supporting India on its path to becoming a global digital powerhouse”.
The company 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 the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, public healthcare institutions such as the Aarogyasri Health Care Trust, large Indian enterprises such as Ashok Leyland, Axis Bank, HDFC Life and Titan, small and medium businesses such as Havmor, Qube Cinema and Narayana Nethralaya, well-known start-ups 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 programs, 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, AWS said.
