Amazon invests £8 billion within the UK to construct cloud and AI infrastructure

LONDON — Amazon Web Services (AWS), the cloud division of the U.S. e-commerce giant, announced plans to speculate £8 billion ($10.45 billion) over the subsequent five years to construct and operate data centers within the UK, expanding its cloud computing efforts within the country.

The investment, announced early Wednesday morning London time, comes at a time when cloud providers are touting the advantages of generative artificial intelligence (AI) and corporations are looking for to integrate the technology into their business.

“We have seen real adoption of cloud computing and AI technology among UK businesses and we know that the UK has a very ambitious digital plan,” said Tanuja Randery, managing director of Europe, Middle East and Africa at AWS, in an interview with CNBC.

“This helps our customers to really use cloud computing, because we need the data centers to actually be able to offer cloud computing to our customers.”

Randery said generative AI is “probably the most disruptive technology we've ever seen, possibly since the cloud and the internet,” and corporations are currently testing this young technology.

“We've also seen that companies are looking at this both in terms of revenue growth and employee productivity, which, as you know, is really, really critical, but also in terms of the ability to be globally competitive.”

AWS, along with other cloud providers, is investing heavily in infrastructure equivalent to data centers and NVIDIA Chips to coach and run AI models. These cloud players then sell AI services to firms.

AWS competes with Microsoft And Google within the UK and the investment continues the corporate's deal with expansion in Europe. AWS announced that it plans to speculate €8.8 billion in its existing cloud infrastructure in Germany this 12 months.

However, this investment comes at a time when regulators within the UK are scrutinising competition within the cloud market, with AWS and Microsoft under scrutiny. The Competitions and Markets Authority is currently investigating the UK cloud market.

Randery said AWS was working “very constructively” with the CMA, but authorities needed to strike a balance between regulation and innovation.

“We have worked very closely with governments and regulators around the world. We believe that regulation is important, but that regulation should continue to be innovation-friendly,” Randery told CNBC.