Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced a monumental €15.7 billion ($17 billion) investment to expand its cloud infrastructure in Spain, signaling a major push to meet the soaring demand for generative AI and cloud computing across Europe. The investment, which will span from 2024 to 2033, dramatically increases AWS’s original 2021 pledge of €2.5 billion for the region.
The funding will be directed toward expanding the AWS Europe (Spain) Region located in Aragon, which first launched in late 2022. This expansion is designed to bolster Spain’s digital economy and position it as a key European hub for AI innovation. The Spanish government lauded the move, with the Ministry for Digital Transformation highlighting its potential to accelerate digital transformation and promote safe AI deployment.
According to AWS, the investment is projected to contribute €21.6 billion to Spain’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and support an estimated 17,500 full-time equivalent jobs annually in local sectors such as construction, facility maintenance, engineering, and telecommunications. This move underscores a broader trend of major cloud providers scaling up their European infrastructure to handle the massive computational requirements of advanced AI models while also addressing data sovereignty. By storing data locally, AWS can assure European customers that their information remains within the EU, in compliance with regulations like GDPR.
Furthermore, AWS has reiterated its commitment to sustainability, matching its energy consumption with 100% renewable energy sources. This massive investment not only enhances AWS’s service capacity for European clients but also reinforces its competitive position against rivals like Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, both of which are also heavily investing in AI-ready infrastructure across the continent.
English 
Deutsch