MILAN/STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc’s (NASDAQ:AWS) computing unit is in talks with Italy to invest billions of euros to expand its data center operations in the country, as the tech giant boosts its cloud services Part of the effort is in Europe, four people familiar with the matter said.
Discussions are ongoing over the size and location of the investment, sources said, with one of the sources saying Amazon Web Services (AWS) is considering expanding its existing site in Milan or building a new one.
Spokespeople for AWS and the Cabinet Office’s digital transformation unit declined to comment. A spokesman for Italy’s Industry Ministry was not immediately available for comment.
AWS launched its first cloud region in Italy in 2020 as part of a 2 billion euro ($2.2 billion) investment plan through 2029.
Its website lists luxury carmaker Ferrari (NYSE:) and insurance company Assicurazioni Generali (BIT:) as clients in the country.
AWS recently unveiled a €15.7 billion investment in data centers in the Aragon region in northeastern Spain, replacing a previously announced 10-year plan in 2021, when the company set aside €2.5 billion for the country.
One of the sources said AWS’ investment in Italy would be in the billions of dollars, but likely not on the scale of its plans in Spain. An announcement was not immediately available.
AWS plans to invest 7.8 billion euros in Germany by 2040.
AWS is also building infrastructure to provide cloud services to telecom customers, which requires a lot of resources.
Earlier this month, Telefonica (NYSE:) Deutschland announced plans to move 1 million customers to the AWS cloud, winning its first customer.
AWS announced plans last year to store data on servers in the European Union to protect data privacy from governments and customers in a highly regulated industry.
Analysts and executives say that many large enterprise customers are starting to spend on cloud computing again after pausing last year as interest in artificial intelligence drives a rebound in growth in the $270 billion cloud infrastructure market.
Alphabet (NASDAQ: ) struck a landmark deal in 2020 to provide cloud services to Italy’s largest bank Intesa Sanpaolo (OTC: ) and has invested €1 billion in Italy, Used to set up the two cloud regions that Union Bank relies on.
Microsoft (NASDAQ: ) said a year ago that it would launch its first cloud region in Italy as part of a $1.5 billion investment plan announced in 2020.
(1 USD = 0.9211 Euro)
