Amazon's AWS to invest $12 billion into India's cloud infra: CEO Selipsky

AWS CEO Adam Selipsky

Amazon Web Services (AWS) on May 18 announced its commitment to invest $12.7 billion (over Rs 1 lakh crore) into India's cloud infrastructure by 2030 in its efforts to meet growing customer demand for cloud services in the country.

"I am very excited about it. I am glad that is coming through because I left India, just absolutely excited about what the country is doing. The role of the government, what enterprises and startups are doing, and by the way, that $3.7 billion, that's just Amazon Web Services, AWS, separate from the rest of Amazon's investment. I am very pleased to announce today that AWS plans to invest an additional $12.7 billion US in our local cloud infrastructure in India by 2030," Amazon Web Services CEO Selipsky said.

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 added its long-term commitment to 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.

"Its economic impact is estimated to be over $23 billion of additional GDP in India by 2030. So we are very excited about all of that. We think it's going to be great for the country, we think it's going to be great for employees for people learning cloud skills, becoming part of the tech and the digital and the cloud economy. Of course, we think it will be good business for us as well because it is such an attractive environment," Selipsky said.

"In addition, of course, we will be investing directly in a very sizeable team in India, and all the different business functions. So we think that will be important," he added.

"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.

"India is already a significant contributor to AWS and that is only going to increase proportionally over the next few years. India is a critical country for AWS, it is very important to our future health, our future growth, and the shape of the business in coming years. So, we intend to continue to invest very significantly. We are going to continue to build infrastructure there, we are going to continue to hire more people there, and we are going to continue to work more with local systems, integrators, and consultants," said Selipsky.

The APN in India includes organisations such as Minfy Technologies, Rapyder Cloud Solutions and Redington, AWS said.

(With inputs from agencies)