Amazon to invest $2.77 bn in Telangana to set up multiple data centres

Telangana IT Minister KTR on Friday took to Twitter to announce that E-commerce giant Amazon has decided to invest Rs 20,761 crore ($2.77 billion) in the state. Amazon is a leader in cloud computing services with its Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Amazon plans to set up multiple data centres in Telangana. KTR said that this would be the largest foreign direct investment (FDI) in Telangana. Earlier this year, there was a buzz about Amazon Web Services considering setting up two data centres near Hyderabad. The total investment was speculated to be about ₹11,630 crore ($1.6 billion). With Friday’s announcement, it is clear the company has decided to invest much more than the initial plans.

According to the Telangana government, AWS is investing to set up an AWS Region with three Availability Zones (AZs) in Hyderabad. The AWS Asia Pacific (Hyderabad) Region is expected to start operations by mid-2022. The AZs consist of multiple data centres in separate distinct locations within a single region that are engineered to be operationally independent of one another with independent power, cooling, physical security, and connections via a low-latency network.

The release from the Telangana government said, “AWS will establish data centres in three locations with an overall estimated capital investment of approx $2.77 bn (₹20,761 crore). The investment from AWS would position Telangana as one of the preferred destinations for other companies that are looking to set up data centres in the future. Establishment of data centres like AWS is expected to support Telangana’s digital economy and IT sector in a multi-fold way.”

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It said the new AWS Asia Pacific (Hyderabad) Region will enable even more developers, startups, and enterprises as well as government, education, and non-profit organisations to run their applications and serve end-users from data centres located in India. “Establishment of data centres in a region will increase the operations of sectors such as e-commerce, public sector, banking and financial services (BFSI), IT, and more,” said the state government.

It said AWS chose Hyderabad because of the support provided by the state government, robust policy framework, and because it best met the rigorous requirements for an AWS Region.

KT Ramarao, minister for IT, industry and commerce, had met officials from AWS during his Davos visit earlier this year. On the occasion of this investment announcement, the minister said, “This investment from AWS is going to be the largest FDI that the state has attracted since the inception and will act as a strong anchor for attracting other technology investments.”

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Jeff Barr, the chief evangelist for AWS, wrote in a blog, “Today, I am happy to announce that the AWS Asia Pacific (Hyderabad) Region is in the works, and will open in mid-2022 with three Availability Zones. This will be our second region in India and our eleventh region in Asia, joining existing regions in Australia, India, Greater China, Japan, Korea, and Singapore. AWS customers are already making use of 77 Availability Zones across 24 regions worldwide. Today’s announcement brings the total number of global regions (operational and in the works) up to 29.”