By Sherry Qin and Ben Otto


Amazon will spend $9 billion to expand its cloud services in Singapore, coming as global tech companies are boosting their data-center footprints in Asia amid a boom in demand for artificial-intelligence computing.

Amazon Web Services, the U.S. tech giant's cloud-computing arm, said Tuesday that it will make the investment through 2028 to meet rising demand for cloud technology and services in the Southeast Asian city-state, adding to about $8.5 billion the Seattle-based company has already spent in recent years on cloud infrastructure in Singapore.

AWS, which provides computing, storage and other services from its data centers around the world, has been accelerating cloud-infrastructure spending globally, coming as Chief Executive Andy Jassy has reoriented the company to focus on AI innovations and to catch up with Microsoft, Google and others in the space.

Since the start of 2024, AWS has unveiled plans to invest $15 billion in Japan and more than $5 billion each in Mexico and Saudi Arabia in the coming years. Last year, AWS said it planned to spend almost $13 billion by 2030 to expand its data-center infrastructure in India, the world's most populous nation.

AWS is Amazon's most profitable unit, with first-quarter results showing the segment's bottom line rose 17% from a year earlier to $25 billion. Amazon said the quarter's capital expenditure of $14 billion would be the low point for the year as it ramps up spending on AWS infrastructure and generative AI investment.

The planned new outlay in Singapore, a regional hub for global companies that have operations across Asia, comes as one of Amazon's biggest rivals in cloud computing is boosting investment in Southeast Asia, similarly to meet exploding demand for computational power to create and use AI systems.

Microsoft last week said during Chief Executive Satya Nadella's visit to the region that it would invest almost $4 billion into cloud-computing and AI infrastructure in Malaysia and Indonesia, and build its first data center in Thailand, to help back its fast-growing Azure business.

The region also recently hosted Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook, who last month announced a $250 million expansion of the company's Singapore offices, and Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang, who late last year visited Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam.


Write to Sherry Qin at sherry.qin@wsj.com and Ben Otto at ben.otto@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

05-07-24 0508ET