Amazon noted that the planned investment will fund the continued operation and expansion of its infrastructure in Sydney and Melbourne
In sum – what to know:
Record-setting tech investment – Amazon will invest AU$20 billion ($13.08 billion) through 2029 to expand AWS cloud and data center infrastructure in Australia, supporting national AI growth and digital modernization.
Clean energy-powered AI infra – Three new solar farms in Victoria and Queensland will supply over 170 MW of renewable energy, bringing Amazon’s total projects in Australia to 11.
Focus on AI skills and inclusion – AWS will grow its workforce development programs, including AI Spring Australia and GenAI accelerators, to help Australians build future-ready skills across sectors.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced an investment of AU$20 billion ($13.08 billion) through 2029 to expand its cloud and data center infrastructure in Australia.
In a release, the U.S. company highlighted that this investment commitment represents the largest-ever technology investment publicly announced in Australia, aimed at strengthening the country’s cloud and AI capabilities while supporting digital transformation across different sectors in the local economy.
The company noted that the planned investment will fund the continued operation and expansion of AWS infrastructure in Sydney and Melbourne, ensuring Australian organizations have full access to cloud and AI services. The announcement comes as demand for generative AI and scalable compute power surges across the region.
Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, said: “This is the largest investment our country has seen from a global technology provider. It creates opportunities for skilled jobs, innovation and infrastructure that supports complex AI and supercomputing applications.”
AWS chief executive officer Matt Garman, added: “This planned investment deepens our long-term commitment to supporting the growth and development of Australian organizations of all sizes and helping them harness the enormous opportunity that generative AI offers. AI is a once-in-a-generation transformation, and Amazon is pleased to be empowering all Australians to innovate at scale through this investment.”
The U.S. tech giant explained that the plan includes the development of three new solar farms in Victoria and Queensland to power AWS infrastructure, bringing Amazon’s total renewable energy projects in Australia to 11. Once operational, these projects are expected to generate 1.4 million MWh of carbon-free energy annually, which would be enough to power approximately 290,000 homes.
AWS has also committed to deepening its investment in AI skills and workforce development, including the AWS AI Spring Australia initiative, AWS Generative AI Accelerator, and AWS AI Launchpad programs. Since 2017, AWS said it has already trained over 400,000 Australians.
AWS’s commitment to Australia began in 2012 with the opening of the AWS Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region. In 2023, AWS launched the AWS Asia Pacific (Melbourne) Region and the country’s first AWS Local Zones in Perth. In July 2024, the Australian Government announced a partnership with AWS to provide a “Top Secret” AWS Cloud to deliver cloud innovation in national security.
AWS recently announced a major investment commitment to boost AI in Saudi Arabia. The U.S. company and HUMAIN — a new Saudi company leading AI development in the country — have recently unveiled a major partnership to invest more than $5 billion in the field of AI.
The collaboration will help build a special “AI Zone” in Saudi Arabia and drive AI adoption across the region and the world.
AWS noted that this new AI Zone will feature cutting-edge AWS infrastructure, including high-performance servers, advanced semiconductors and UltraCluster networking to speed up AI training and inference. It will also offer AWS services like SageMaker, Bedrock and Amazon Q, which help organizations build and run generative AI (genAI) applications.
This initiative builds on AWS’s previously announced $5.3 billion investment to launch a new AWS infrastructure region in Saudi Arabia by 2026.
