UK chancellor Rachel Reeves said the investment will boost growth in the country, but AWS is currently under investigation for alleged anticompetitive practices.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) plans to invest £8bn into the UK over the next five years as it continues to grow its infrastructure around the world.
The company said the investment into its digital and AI infrastructure will help meet the growing needs of its customers and support the transformation of the UK’s digital economy. The company estimates that the investment will support around 14,000 jobs per year across the country.
UK chancellor Rachel Reeves said the investment aligns with the government’s mission to boost growth and unlock investment for the country. AWS estimates that its investment will contribute £14bn to the UK’s total GDP from 2024 to 2028.
Reeves said the investment marks the start of an “economic revival” and shows that “Britain is a place to do business”.
“I am under no illusion to the scale of the challenge facing our economy and I will be honest with the British people that change will not happen overnight,” Reeves said. “Two quarters of positive economic growth does not make up for fourteen years of stagnation under the previous government.
“I am determined to go further so we can deliver on our mandate to create jobs, unlock investment and make every part of Britain better off. The hard work to fix the foundations of our economy has only just begun.”
AWS has been investing massively into growing its digital infrastructure around the world, particularly in Europe. The company revealed plans in June to invest €8.8bn into its existing cloud infrastructure in Germany – this followed an announcement that AWS will invest €7.8bn into its European Sovereign Cloud in Germany between now and 2040.
The previous month, AWS said it will invest €15.7bn into Spain and that it will expand its cloud infrastructure in the Aragon region. This was shortly followed by Microsoft making a similar investment announcement.
Investing during investigation
The investment comes during a probe into both AWS and Microsoft’s potentially anticompetitive practices in the UK’s cloud sector. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority is investigating the cloud services market to see if there are any potential factors impacting competition.
This investigation was prompted by a study from Ofcom, which found that AWS and Microsoft had a combined share in the UK’s cloud market of 70pc to 80pc in 2022.
Mark Boost, CEO of UK cloud company Civo, said a major investment would “normally deserve unequivocal celebration”, but the UK needs to consider “where the money is actually going”.
“Expensive data centre infrastructure and AI hardware, that will be a significant amount of this investment, are not made and sold by UK companies,” Boost said. “With AWS facing serious questions over its business practices, the chancellor would do well to be wary.”
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