Seattle, Washington – Amazon is gearing up to invest nearly $150 billion over the course of the next 15 years in data centers, fueled by the anticipation of heightened demand for AI applications and other digital services in the cloud. As the company seeks to expand its capacity significantly to align with customer needs, it is strategically planning the development of new data centers across various regions globally.
While Microsoft currently holds the top position in the realm of data centers, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has been facing challenges in the past year due to reduced costs by business customers and delayed projects. However, the increasing demand for AI technologies has reignited Amazon’s momentum, prompting the company to secure land and power systems for its upcoming data centers.
AWS Vice President Kevin Miller expressed the company’s commitment to enhancing capacity significantly, noting the importance of being closer to customers. With a reported commitment of $148 billion towards the construction and operation of data centers, Amazon is set to expand its server farm hubs in locations such as northern Virginia and Oregon, as well as venture into new territories like Mississippi, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, and Taiwan.
The substantial investment in data centers by Amazon is in response to the growing need for corporate services such as file storage, databases, and AI technologies. These new facilities are expected to house advanced, high-end chips that will provide the computational power necessary for future AI hardware and software advancements.
Although Amazon lacks a major AI service partner like Microsoft’s OpenAI and Google, the company is devising its own tools to compete in the industry. By collaborating with other companies to enhance its AI services using AWS servers, Amazon aims to stay competitive in the rapidly evolving landscape of AI technologies.
As the demand for data centers continues to rise, challenges related to power supply are also becoming more apparent. Amazon’s server farms in Oregon, for example, consume considerable amounts of electricity, surpassing the local utility’s hydroelectric power supply. This has led to the company seeking alternative power sources, such as electricity generated by natural gas.
In a move to secure its power supply, AWS has agreed to invest $650 million in acquiring a data center campus linked to a nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. Furthermore, the company’s plans to invest around $10 billion in two data center facilities in Mississippi signify a significant corporate project that will shape the state’s economic landscape.