Amazon Web Services launches AWS Asia Pacific (Hyderabad) Region

AWS Regions are composed of availability zones that place infrastructure in separate and distinct geographic locations. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Cloud service provider Amazon Web Services, Inc. has launched AWS Asia Pacific (Hyderabad) Region, its second such facility to augment services to customers in India.

It will be investing an estimated $4.4 billion (about ₹36,300 crore) by 2030 in the country, through the region, which will include capital expenditure on construction of data centres, operational expenses related to ongoing utilities and facility costs, and purchases of goods and services from regional businesses. The new region is also expected to support more than 48,000 full-time jobs annually at external businesses during this period.

The jobs will be part of the AWS supply chain in India, including construction, facility maintenance, engineering, telecommunications and jobs within the country’s broader economy, the Amazon company said on November 22.

On AWS Asia Pacific (Hyderabad) Region, consisting of three availability zones, it said “starting today, developers, startups, entrepreneurs and enterprises, as well as government, education, and non-profit organisations, will have greater choice for running their applications and serving end users from data centres located in India”. Customers will have access to advanced AWS technologies to drive innovation, including data analytics, security, machine learning and Artificial Intelligence.

“Customers and partners in India will now have additional regional infrastructure to deploy applications with greater resilience, availability, and even lower latency,” said Prasad Kalyanaraman, vice-president of Infrastructure Services at Amazon Data Services Inc. The launch and is part of the firm’s long-term investment in the country since opening of the first office in 2011.

AWS Regions are composed of availability zones that place infrastructure in separate and distinct geographic locations. With the latest addition, AWS has 96 such zones across 30 geographic regions and it plans to launch 15 more zones and five more AWS regions in Australia, Canada, Israel, New Zealand and Thailand. AWS Asia Pacific (Mumbai) Region was opened in June 2016.

Welcoming the investment commitment, Telangana’s IT and Industries Minister K.T. Rama Rao said the move is bound strengthen Telangana’s position as a progressive data centre hub in India. “We recognise the power of cloud computing, which is why we have collaborated with AWS to improve e-governance, healthcare, and municipal operations to benefit the citizens of Telangana… pleased that new AWS Region in Hyderabad will spur more innovation and growth,” he said.

Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Rajeev Chandrashekhar said, “As a part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s $1 trillion digital economy vision the ‘India cloud’ is set for big expansion and innovation. Data centres are an important element of the digital ecosystem. The investments by AWS in expanding their data centres in India is a welcome development and would help catalyse India’s digital economy.”