Amazon's AWS to invest in cloud infrastructure in Taiwan

Taipei, June 12 (CNA) Amazon Web Services (AWS), a cloud service subsidiary of U.S.-based Amazon.com Inc., will launch an AWS cloud infrastructure region -- the new AWS Asia Pacific (Taipei) Region -- in Taiwan by early 2025, the American e-commerce giant said Wednesday.

In a statement, Amazon said AWS also plans to invest billions of U.S. dollars in Taiwan over the next 15 years.

Amazon said the new AWS cloud region reflects AWS's long-term commitment to meeting the strong demand for cloud services in Taiwan and across the Asia Pacific.

AWS Regions are separate geographic areas that AWS uses to house its cloud infrastructure.

According to Amazon, the new cloud infrastructure in Taiwan is expected to give greater choice to developers, startups, entrepreneurs, and enterprises, firms in education, entertainment and financial services industries, as well as non-profit organizations to run their applications and serve end users from data centers located in Taiwan, a way to ensure that customers who want to keep their content in Taiwan can do so.

"AWS is committed to helping customers of all sizes and across all industries accelerate their digital transformation with the highest levels of security and resilience available," Prasad Kalyanaraman, vice president of Infrastructure Services at AWS, said in the statement.

"The new AWS Region in Taiwan will enable organizations to unlock the full potential of the cloud and build with AWS technologies like compute, storage, databases, analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence to drive innovation and transform the way businesses and institutions serve their customers," Kalyanaraman said.

Amazon said the new AWS Region will consist of three "Availability Zones" at the time of the launch. An AWS Availability Zone is the logical building block that makes up an AWS Region.

Currently, AWS runs 105 Availability Zones, across 33 geographic regions worldwide, while each Availability Zone has independent power, cooling, and physical security and is connected through redundant, ultra-low-latency networks.

Including the announcement made Wednesday, Amazon said, AWS plans to launch 21 more Availability Zones and seven more AWS Regions in Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Thailand, and the AWS European Sovereign Cloud.

In response, Taiwan Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) expressed gratitude to ASW for its efforts to provide diverse innovative cloud services to Taiwanese enterprises and their foreign counterparts in Taiwan.

"Taiwan boasts a well-established industrial cluster, particularly excelling in sectors such as semiconductors and information and communications technology," Cho said in the statement.

"We anticipate that the new AWS Region in Taiwan will foster a mutually beneficial, prosperous, and sustainable relationship," Cho said. "This investment is poised to catalyze the growth of related industry chains, generate high-quality employment opportunities, and advance sustainable development initiatives."

Currently, Taiwanese clients of AWS include PC brand Acer Inc., Cathay Financial Holding Co., Chunghwa Telecom Co., gaming software developer Gamania Group, AI multimedia platform provider KKCompany Technologies, contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), and cybersecurity service supplier Trend Micro Inc., according to Amazon.

Through its continued expansion in Taiwan, AWS launched AWS Local Zones, a type of AWS infrastructure deployment that places compute, storage, database, and other select services closer to large populations, industry, and IT centers, in Taipei in 2022.

Compared with Local Zones, Amazon said, the new AWS Asia Pacific (Taipei) Region will be on a larger scale, can keep data locally to reduce latency in data transmissions and is expected to meet demand from transactions in financial markets and legal compliance in industries such as medical services.