NEW DELHI: Amazon on Thursday announced fresh investment of $13 billion, which will largely go towards AI and cloud businesses, taking its recent commitment to $48 billion by 2030 and making it the largest overseas investor in the country.“If you look at the combination of the $40 billion since 2010 and the incremental $48 billion through 2030, the largest absolute amount of it is still in our marketplace business. But increasingly we are investing very substantial amounts of it in our AWS (Amazon Web Services) and our cloud and AI businesses,” Amazon president and CEO Andy Jassy told TOI, adding that investment in the cloud and AI business will total around $21 billion.Welcoming the investment, PM Modi posted: “This will create new opportunities for our youth. At the same time, it shows the growing interest across the world to invest in India!” TNNAfter Amazon president and CEO Andy Jassy’s meeting with the PM here on Thursday, the company said in a statement, “The investment will expand AWS data center capacity in Mumbai and Hyderabad, giving startups, enterprises and govt organizations access to custom AI chips, managed AI services, secure and reliable cloud technologies and developer tools to innovate faster, scale rapidly, and serve customers globally.”Amazon plans to launch more than 20 new fulfillment centers and over 100 new last mile delivery stations this year.It also intends to focus on its Trainium chips in India as it evaluates third party sales globally.Amazon has pledged to support over 3.8 million jobs, enable $80 billion in cumulative e-commerce exports and bring the benefits of artificial intelligence to 15 million small businesses and 4 million govt school students by 2030, the company said.Apart from Amazon, global giants — from Google ($15 billion) to Air Trunk ($30 billion), Saint Gobain ($1.1 billion) and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board ($700 million) — have announced investment plans in the last few months, which cumulatively add up to $95 billion over the next four to five years. A large part of this money will flow into data centres and techrelated initiatives.“Message is clear: global CEOs see India as the next big growth engine and they are getting in early and investing heavily,” said a govt official. The investment announcements come amid the global uncertainty caused by tension in West Asia and the tariff related concerns that are expected to flare up in the coming weeks as the Trump administration announces a fresh strategy.
