AWS In Talks To Invest Billions In Italy Amidst AI Cloud Surge

Cloud infrastructure provider Amazon Web Services (AWS) is reportedly in talks with Italy to invest billions of euros to expand its business in the country amidst broader expansion plans in Europe.

AWS is in ongoing discussions over the size and location of the investment, and is considering either expanding its current site in Milan or building a new one, Reuters reported, citing unnamed sources.

The unit launched its first localised cloud region in Italy in 2020 as part of a plan to invest 2 billion euros (£1.7bn) in the country by 2029.

AWS’ spending in the country would be in the billions but may not reach the ambitious 15.7bn euro spending plan in Spain that AWS announced last week, the report said.

Europe expansion

The company said it would expand its cloud infrastructure based in the Aragon region, launched in November 2022, with the support of the regional government.

The new announcement greatly expands upon a previous plan to spend 2.5bn euros in Spain that AWS announced in 2021.

Telefonica and the Spanish Red Cross are amongst the users of the Aragon region.

Amazon also said it is investing in 12 new renewable energy projects in Spain totalling 596MW of generating capacity, taking its capacity in the country to 3GW across 79 projects.

The new projects include four wind farms and eight solar plants. The company said its data centres in Spain will be entirely powered from renewable energy.

AI boom

AWS is planning to invest 7.8bn euros in Germany through 2040 and is also building specialised cloud capacity for telecoms companies, with Telefonica Deutschland saying earlier this month it would move 1 million customers to AWS.

Worldwide spending on cloud infrastructure surged 21 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2024, largely due to corporate requirements for artificial intelligence (AI) services, Canalys said earlier this month.

Market-share leader AWS saw sales grow by 17 percent in the quarter, with Google Cloud growing by 28 percent and Microsoft growing by 31 percent year-on-year.