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 to be allocated “as part of its long-term commitment” (via The Wall Street Journal).
The new AWS Taiwan Region 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 push for cloud infrastructure will allow companies in the region to access increasingly popular artificial intelligence and machine learning tools through 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. Last month, AWS committed $9 billion to improve its cloud services in Singapore over the next five years. It has also recently confirmed an investment of $6 billion in Malaysia and $5 billion in Thailand.
The current 105 availability zones within 33 AWS Regions are expected to grow into 21 availability zones and seven more regions in the coming years.
Of the eight million people the company claims to have trained in the Asia-Pacific and Japan region since 2017, only 100,000 were Taiwanese citizens. The latest announcement and upcoming confirmation will likely include more training efforts and economic benefits in the country.
More broadly, the company's reasonably aggressive expansion comes in response to similar efforts by Google and Microsoft, which have also committed to increasing their presence in Asia and the Pacific.
However, it is clearly working. AWS remains Amazon's most profitable unit, with revenue of $25 billion in the first quarter of 2024, representing a powerful 17% year-over-year growth.
