Amazon to invest another US$5 billion in South Korea data centres

[SEOUL] Amazon.com is setting aside another US$5 billion for investment in South Korean data centres, sharply ramping up the spending it’s already devoting towards building artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure in the country.

The capital will go towards erecting several data centres in the years to 2031, South Korea’s presidential office said in a statement after a meeting between Amazon Web Services (AWS) chief Matt Garman and President Lee Jae-myung. The spending comes on top of more than US$4 billion of envisioned investment with partner SK Group announced in June.

Amazon’s cloud division is one of the biggest spenders in a burgeoning post-ChatGPT infrastructure boom, joining the likes of Meta Platforms and Microsoft in a race to build the giant data centres critical to all AI services. Most are devoting billions of US dollars towards data centres in Asia in particular, a region marked by rapid growth in mobile and technology adoption.

AWS, long the leader in cloud services, has grappled with hard-charging rivals such as Alphabet’s Google and Oracle of late. The company is revamping and cutting staff to accelerate the business, while keeping pace with its biggest rivals in investment. BLOOMBERG