AWS has had a €1.2 billion investment in Italy cleared by the country"s government, the company said. The money will be invested over the next five years to expand its cloud infrastructure and services offered by the AWS Europe (Milan) Region.
Amazon said that the project will lead to an €880 million contribution to the country"s GDP and will help to create 5,500 jobs through to 2029.
Describing the jobs that are expected to be made, Amazon said:
"These jobs will span various sectors, including construction, facility maintenance, engineering, telecommunications, and the broader local economy."
By expanding its operations in Italy, AWS says that more AI, ML, and Internet of Things (IoT) services will be able to be supported. It also boosts Italy"s and the European Union"s (EU) digital sovereignty. This means that businesses can keep European data in Europe.
While infrastructure is very important, it"s nothing without human capital—people"s knowledge and skills—to accompany it. To that end, AWS has trained 900,000 people across the EU in cloud skills since 2017, that includes 100,000 people in Italy alone. In addition, it launched its "AI Ready" program in November 2023 to train 2 million people worldwide in AI by 2025.
The AWS Europe (Milan) Region was established by AWS in 2020. Since then, the company has established offices in Milan and Rome, a research center in Asti, two Direct Connect Locations, and 16 Edge Locations across Milan, Rome, and Palermo.
For developers, this expansion should give them more say on where to store the data of European users, and for users connecting to services in the country, it could speed things up a bit.
Source: AWS