Amazon Web Services (AWS) is making an investment of AU$20 billion between 2025 and 2029 to expand its data center infrastructure in Australia — the country’s largest publicly-announced technology investment to date. This strategic move strengthens Australia’s digital economy and AI leadership while delivering wide-ranging benefits for customers, the workforce, and sustainability.
Strategic Investment to Modernize Infrastructure
This long-term investment builds on AWS’s more than decade-long presence in Australia, including the launch of major infrastructure like the Asia Pacific (Sydney) and (Melbourne) Regions, Local Zones in Perth, and most recently, Amazon Bedrock — AWS’s generative AI platform. The investment significantly scales up local capacity, aligns with Australia’s AI productivity goals, and ensures cloud innovation remains compliant with national data sovereignty and regulatory requirements.
Jobs and Skills Development for the Digital Economy
AWS’s investment is expected to generate thousands of skilled technology jobs in Australia, particularly in data center operations, renewable energy deployment, and AI innovation. It supports the government’s vision of economic growth through AI while creating local employment and workforce transformation opportunities.
Since 2017, AWS has trained over 400,000 Australians and continues to expand access to free digital and AI skills through initiatives such as:
AI Ready (free global AI training for 2 million people by 2025)
Work-Based Learning Program (12-month on-the-job data center operations training)
AI Spring Australia, which includes:
Generative AI Accelerator for startups
AI Launchpad for enterprise adoption
These programs aim to empower Australians with future-ready skills, ensuring a digitally fluent and AI-capable workforce.
Customer Benefits and Industry Impact
AWS’s expanded infrastructure brings high-performance, secure, and low-latency cloud and AI services to hundreds of thousands of customers across industries. Organizations — from startups to global enterprises — benefit through:
Scalable generative AI services such as Amazon Bedrock and the new Amazon Nova models
Data residency assurance and compliance support
Significant carbon footprint reduction for AI workloads (up to 94% vs. on-premise solutions, according to Accenture)
Faster innovation cycles across sectors like banking, healthcare, cybersecurity, and government
Customers already leveraging AWS AI capabilities include Canva, Telstra, Commonwealth Bank, Atlassian, ANZ Bank, Australian Stroke Alliance, and numerous AI-focused startups like 6pillars.ai and Relevance AI.
Green Energy Commitment
To support the energy needs of its infrastructure expansion, Amazon is investing in three new solar farms in Victoria and Queensland, totaling more than 170 MW in clean energy capacity. This adds to eight existing renewable projects, bringing the total to 11, projected to generate 1.4 million MWh of carbon-free energy annually — enough to power 290,000 homes.
Amazon remains the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy globally and was the third-largest in Australia in 2024, having already invested AU$467 million in local renewable projects between 2020 and 2022.
Amazon’s AU$20 billion investment in Australia is a transformative strategy — modernizing national cloud and AI infrastructure, creating jobs, driving customer innovation, and advancing the clean energy transition. With wide-ranging support from the Australian government and industry, AWS is positioned to play a central role in building Australia’s AI capability and digital future.
InfotechLead.com News Desk
