Amazon Web Serivces (AWS) has committed to investing billions of dollars in Taiwan over the next 15 years to expand its cloud infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific region.
Initial investments are expected to be confirmed as early as 2025, with billions likely earmarked “as part of its long-term commitment” (via The Wall Street Journal).
The new AWS Region in Taiwan will feature three Availability Zones comprising isolated locations with their own data centers equipped with independent power, cooling and physical security.
AWS Taiwan expansion
The cloud infrastructure boost will enable businesses in the region to access increasingly popular artificial intelligence and machine learning tools via high-bandwidth, low-latency, local sites.
Amazon’s investment in the region, which builds on its decade-long history with Taiwan, is part of a broader strategy to expand its infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific region. Just last month, AWS committed $9 billion to enhance its cloud services in Singapore over the next five years. It has also recently confirmed a $6 billion investment in Malaysia and $5 billion for Thailand.
The current 105 Availability Zones within 33 AWS Regions are expected to grow by a further 21 Availability Zones and seven Regions in coming years.
Of the eight million individuals the company claims to have trained across the Asia-Pacific-Japan region since 2017, only 100,000 people were Taiwan citizens. The latest announcement and upcoming confirmation will likely include further training efforts and economic benefits in the country.
More broadly, the company’s reasonably aggressive expansion comes as a response to similar efforts by Google and Microsoft, which have also committed to growing their Asia-Pacific footprints.
Clearly, though, it’s working. AWS remains Amazon’s most profitable unit, accounting for $25 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2024, representing a mighty 17% year-over-year growth.
