Amazon to invest R30 billion in South Africa

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced plans to invest R30.4 billion ($1.6 billon) in South African cloud infrastructure by 2029.

The company released a new economic impact study (EIS) that detailed the company’s investment in its AWS Africa (Cape Town) Region since 2018, as well as the expected investment to build, run, and maintain its cloud infrastructure in the nation.

AWS anticipates investing R6 billion between 2018 and 2029.

According to the analysis, AWS’s investment from 2018 to 2029 would provide an estimated R80 billion to South Africa’s GDP and support an expected average of more than 5,700 full-time equivalents (FTE) employment at local South African enterprises on an annual basis.

“AWS had long been committed to South Africa, and this infrastructure investment adds to our ongoing local story, where one of our foundational capabilities – Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) – was developed by engineers in Cape Town back in 2006,” said Amrote Abdella, General Manager, AWS Sub Saharan Africa.

“This report illustrates our ongoing commitment to invest in South Africa and support demand for our world-class technology from customers here and around the world.”

Amazon stated that its investment has already had a positive impact on multiple local companies and that it has assisted in the establishment of training and skilling programs for the local workforce, as well as in supporting community participation through different projects and the creation of sustainability initiatives across the nation.

AWS invested R15.6 billion from 2018 to 2022, which covers all cash costs directly related to the AWS Africa Region, such as imports of highly specialized and proprietary equipment and software, as well as in-country spending.

This AWS Region is expected to have generated R12 billion in local GDP.

Capital expenditures on construction labour, materials, and services are included in local spending, as are regular operational expenditures on employee and contractor salaries, utility bills, and facility charges.

The South African data centre supply chain is supported by AWS investment, which creates jobs in telecommunications, nonresidential construction, energy production, facilities maintenance, and data centre operations.

The organization said that in order to assist in preparing the nation’s future workforce, it also collaborates with higher education institutions in South Africa, such as Durban University of Technology, Stellenbosch University, and the University of Cape Town.

“Programs like AWS Academy, AWS Educate, and AWS re/Start help with job training across the country. Moreover, AWS is committed to supporting the digital literacy goals set out in South Africa’s ‘National Digital and Future Skills Strategy’ through innovative workforce development programs,” it said.

Amazon announced its commitment to reducing its carbon footprint and turning into a more sustainable company by the year 2040. In order to do this, it has grown to be the largest corporate buyer of renewable energy in the world and is on track to completely power its operations with renewable energy by 2025, five years earlier than its initial goal.