Prime minister Albanese has welcomed Amazon Web Services’ investment of $13.2 billion in its Australian cloud infrastructure over the next five years, to meet growing demand in the country.
“Digital transformation is integral to Australia’s future prosperity,” Albanese said.
“Economic and infrastructure investment from cloud providers like AWS helps create jobs, advances digital skills, boosts innovation and uplifts local communities,” Albanese added.
The money will be spent on existing cloud infrastructure in Sydney and Melbourne, and is added to support an additional 11,000 full-time equivalent jobs at local businesses each year, Amazon claimed.
Amazon estimated that the $13.2 billion investment will translate into a $35 billion contribution to Australia’s gross domestic product by 2027.
The cloud giant has spent more than $9.1 billion in Australia since opening its Sydney region in 2012, including capital and operational expenditure, along with construction and maintenance costs for the facility, and $630 million on network infrastructure.
This has resulted in an additional $19.2 billion to Australia’s total GDP and an annual average of over 5000 full time jobs at local businesses, AWS estimated.
“We are committed to positive social and economic impact, investing in local community engagement programs, workforce development initiatives, cloud infrastructure, and renewable energy project investments,” Rianne van Veldhuizen, AWS managing director for Australia and New Zealand said.
“Our plan to invest more than AU$13 billion into the country over the next five years will help create more positive ripple effects, further solidifying Australia’s position in the global economy,” van Veldhuizen added.
AWS said it used Harvard economist Wassily Leontief’s input-output model to arrive at the figures, which it used for its Economic Impact Study.
The cumulative effects of AWS investment include changes in employment, earnins and GDP created by the cloud company’s direct suppliers.
This includes construction firms, colocation providers and power companies. Indirect effect from suppliers of construction labour and materials were included, along with induced effect created by firms that supply household goods to workers at Amazon companies, and AWS’s direct and indirect suppliers.
