On Tuesday, Amazon.com (AMZN, Financial) announced it's set to spend more than $5 billion on a new data center in central Mexico, according to a joint statement by the company and the Mexican government. The news came out during an event with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum and Amazon Web Services (AWS)'s director of Latin America, Paula Bellizia.
The data center focuses on Amazon's neverending expansion into cloud computing infrastructure, which stores and manages the data produced by the billions of globally connected devices. Bellizia called it a 'testimonial' of Amazon's 'commitment to Mexico, which has become so important as a strategic hub for data and technology development.'
Widely considered the largest cloud computing service provider globally, AWS has been steadily growing its presence to meet that increasing demand, particularly as generative AI has precipitated a spike in data storage requirements. In addition to Brazil operations, AWS has already announced its plans for two new data centres in Santiago, Chile.
Of course, this kind of investment is aligned with Mexico's push to attract global technology companies and build out its digital infrastructure. The data center planned for Watsonville is intended to expand AWS's regional capacity and encourage economic development in the region.
Amazon's thrust in cloud computing expansion is part of larger trends to aid in adapting companies around the globe to the rise of digital and AI technologies. It is an important development for Mexico, which is becoming a bigger part of the tech ecosystem globally.
