Amazon has announced to invest a massive AU$20 billion in expanding its data center infrastructure across Australia by 2029, which is the largest technology investment worldwide in the history of this country. The commitment is a response to emerging demand for cloud computing and artificial intelligence services – and a step towards Australia becoming a world-leading artificial intelligence leader.
Renewable energy drives huge infrastructure growth
Amazon has committed AU20bn(US13bn) to scale its data centre footprint across Australia by 2029 with a focus on supporting AI development and cloud services. This long-term expansion, which is regarded as the largest global tech investment in Australia’s history, includes a sustainability strategy to minimise the environmental impact. At the core of that strategy are solar energy projects and emissions-saving AI infrastructure.
Amazon’s plan involves investment in three new solar farms in Victoria and Queensland. These will be delivered and run by European Energy, with Amazon buying up over 170MW of energy from the sites. This clean electricity will help power the new data centre infrastructure, so that cloud computing growth doesn’t come at the environment’s expense. The three new solar farms join a renewable energy portfolio already developed by Amazon in Australia across New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria that includes eight solar and wind projects.
Solar projects provide electricity to 290,000 homes every year
When they’re all 11 operational, they’re expected to provide over 1.4 million mWh of annually-generated carbon-free renewable energy, enough to power about 290,000 Australian homes each year. In 2024, Amazon was the third-largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in Australia and still the largest in the world. This way of thinking reflects a broader corporate trend of linking the growth of digital infrastructure to cleaner energy sources.
AI dst loads see dramatic emissions reductions
This investment is not just ILs and solar panels. Amazon’s infrastructure is going to help reduce carbon emissions associated with computing as well. According to a study by consultancy Accenture, organisations that migrate compute-intensive AI workloads to AWS cloud infrastructure can cut emissions by up to 94% as compared with running them on on-site servers.
These emissions reductions would come from AWS’s efficiencies in hardware design, energy-efficient cooling systems, and the use of carbon-free energy. This is significant in the context of AI, in which intensive computing can otherwise increase power and carbon footprints. Amazon’s commitment to the region began in 2012, welcoming the AWS Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region. It added the Melbourne region for 2023 and set up AWS Local Zones in Perth. In Sydney in April, it introduced Amazon Bedrock, a managed generative AI service.
Government partnership leads to national security capability
The Australian government has also partnered with AWS to develop a classified cloud for national security and defence applications. Experts say AWS’s infrastructure is likely to be at the heart of helping the country unlock an economic opportunity of AU600billion (US390bn) in AI and automation by 2030, according to the Department of Industry, Science and Resources.
ย “This is theJegyzลkรถnyv heitimate biggest investment our country has seen from a worldwide technology provider,” says Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
Also of focus for Amazon is the development of digital skills in order to support this transformation. AWS says it’s trained over 400,000 people in Australia since 2017, and continues to support upskilling initiatives via programmes like AWS AI Spring Australia, the AWS Generative AI Accelerator, and AWS AI Launchpad.
Amazon’s AU$20 billion commitment is a transformational investment in Australia’s digital future, which is combining massive infrastructure expansion with environmental responsibility and workforce development.ย This strategic partnership between Amazon and Australia provides a great example of how making big investments in technologies can stimulate economic growth while staying committed to sustainability principles and advancing national development goals.