Amazon to spend nearly $9 bln to expand cloud infra in Singapore

SINGAPORE: Southeast Asia's top leaders are scrambling for a bigger slice of the global tech pie, with Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore hosting Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in December, and Apple CEO Tim Cook visiting Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia last month. Recent investments in the region include Apple's plan to invest over $250 million into its operations in Singapore.

Amazon.com plans to spend S$12 billion ($8.88 billion) over the next four years to expand its cloud computing infrastructure in Singapore, Amazon Web Services (AWS) said on Tuesday.

The investment adds to the S$11.5 billion the company has already invested in the Asia Pacific Region till 2023, bringing its total planned spend to more than S$23 billion by 2028, AWS said in a statement. Southeast Asia's top leaders are scrambling for a bigger slice of the global tech pie, with Malaysia, Vietnam and Singapore hosting Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in December, and Apple CEO Tim Cook visiting Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia last month.

Recent investments in the region include Apple's plan to invest over $250 million into its operations in Singapore. AWS also announced a collaboration with the Singapore government, public sector organisations and enterprises to help accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI in Singapore, the statement said.

"AWS is doubling down on its cloud infrastructure investments in Singapore from 2024 to 2028 to support customer demand, and help reinforce Singapore's status as an attractive regional innovation launchpad," AWS Country Manager Priscilla Chong said. The announcement at the AWS ASEAN Summit in Singapore marks Amazon's latest move in its plan to build AWS infrastructure across Southeast Asia. The company had previously announced a $5 billion investment in Thailand and a $6 bln spend in Malaysia.

Amazon's announcement comes days after Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced cloud services investments worth $2.2 billion in Malaysia and $1.7 billion in Indonesia during a visit to the region. With a young tech-savvy population of 670 million, Southeast Asia has seen increasing interest from technology giants.

Reuters reported in December that Malaysian conglomerate YTL's utilities unit would partner with Nvidia to develop AI infrastructure in a $4.3 billion investment deal. On Monday, Malaysia's trade minister trade minister Tengku Zafrul Aziz said Google was also planning to invest in the country with an announcement expected "in the near future", according to a report by the state news agency.

Meanwhile, Indonesia is keen to have Nvidia's Huang visit again, with communications minister Budi Arie Setiadi saying last month that they had invited him. ($1 = 1.3516 Singapore dollars)