Amazon to invest $20bn in Australian data centres to fuel AI boom

Amazon has committed A$20 billion into its Australian data centre infrastructure, in what it calls the largest technology investment ever made by a global company in the country.

Between now and 2029, Amazon said the investment will strengthen Australia’s cloud and AI capabilities, support digital transformation, national security and generative AI adoption.

Prime minister Anthony Albanese confirmed the investment alongside Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman in Seattle over the weekend, describing the announcement as “an exciting opportunity for Australia to build AI capability using secure, resilient infrastructure.”

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“This is exactly the kind of economic investment in our nation that we want to see, and creates opportunities for continued innovation and growth,” Albanese said. “The investment will generate economic opportunity for Australians, including skilled jobs and infrastructure that can support complex AI and supercomputing applications.”

The $20 billion outlay will fund the expansion, operation and maintenance of AWS cloud infrastructure in Sydney and Melbourne, and is intended to meet rising demand for compute-heavy AI workloads and scalable cloud services from both the public and private sectors.

It builds on more than a decade of local investment by AWS, which opened its first Australian region in Sydney in 2012, followed by a second region in Melbourne in 2023. The company launched its generative AI platform Amazon Bedrock in Australia in 2024, and was recently selected by the federal government to provide a "Top Secret" cloud for national security and defence.

To support the infrastructure growth, Amazon is also investing in three new solar farms in Victoria and Queensland, adding to its existing renewable energy footprint. Once operational, the combined 11 solar and wind projects are expected to generate more than 1.4 million megawatt hours of carbon-free energy annually, enough to power nearly 290,000 homes.

Garman said the investment would empower Australian businesses to innovate at scale.

“This planned investment deepens our long-term commitment to supporting the growth and development of Australian organisations of all sizes and helping them harness the enormous opportunity that generative AI offers,” he said. 

“We’re proud to be expanding our world-class data centre infrastructure, bringing more renewable energy projects online, and supporting the country’s vision to be a global AI leader. AI is a once-in-a-generation transformation, and Amazon is pleased to be empowering all Australians through this investment.”

AWS has already trained more than 400,000 Australians in cloud and digital skills since 2017 and will continue to support AI capability development through initiatives such as AWS AI Spring Australia and the AWS Generative AI Accelerator.

A recent Accenture study found that Australian organisations moving AI workloads to AWS could cut carbon emissions by up to 94% compared to running them on-premise.

The federal government expects AI and automation to contribute up to A$600 billion annually to GDP by 2030.