Amid global uncertainties, cloud enabling companies to be cost-effective, drive agility, innovation: AWS CEO

AWS is a subsidiary of Amazon that provides on-demand cloud computing platforms and APIs to individuals, companies, and governments (Representative Image)

Amid the global economic uncertainty, inflationary pressures and supply chain disruptions, cloud computing is offering companies cost-effective means to be agile and to operate efficiently while innovating, Adam Selipsky, CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS) has said.

Selipsky, in his AWS re:Invent keynote speech, drew attention to the "today's uncertain environment" that is posing situations ranging from "extreme" to "bursting with possibilities", and added that with the right tools, companies can survive and thrive in such environments.

"I want to acknowledge there is a lot of real and pressing problems and challenges in world right now. The economic uncertainty rippling around the world, inflation, supply chain disruptions, including chip storages, energy prices... all on top of global pandemic that has impacted so many," Selipsky said.

He added that in times of uncertainty though it may seem tempting to cut back and slowdown, when it comes to the cloud many of AWS customers are aware that they should be "leaning in" "because of economic uncertainty.

Amazon's cloud computing unit, AWS, is building sustainability into everything it does.

"We are determined to be inventive and relentless as we work to make the cloud the cleanest and the most energy efficient way to run all of your infrastructure and your business," he said.

Selipsky described sustainability as "the issue of our generation", and announced that AWS is committed to powering its operations with 100 per cent renewable energy by 2025.

"We are already on target and over 85 per cent of the way there," he said.

Further, the company is committing to becoming 'water positive' by 2030 meaning AWS will return more water to communities than it uses in direct operations, according to Selipsky.

On the benefits of cloud computing, he said it is yielding 30 per cent savings for many customers turning out to be more cost effective.

"If you're looking to tighten your belt, the cloud is the place to do it," Selipsky said and explained that opting for cloud allows business to pay only for what they use, with flexibility to scale up and scale down.

"This benefits your expenses and, of course, your ability to serve customers. Cloud gives you the capability, to operate efficiently in lean times and being stronger than your competition, ready to accelerate when business conditions change," he said.

Put simply, cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of IT resources over the Internet with pay-as-you-go pricing. Rather than buying, owning, and maintaining physical data centres and servers, businesses can access technology services, such as computing power, storage, and databases, on an as-needed basis from a cloud provider like AWS.

Last week, AWS announced an investment of USD 4.4 billion (about Rs 36,300 crore) by 2030 in building in Hyderabad its second data centre cluster in India. The AWS Asia Pacific (Hyderabad) region will provide developers, startups, and companies among others with more options to "run workloads with greater resilience and availability, securely store data in India, and serve end users with lower latency", the company had said in a recent statement.

AWS already has a similar facility in Mumbai, which opened in 2016.