Amazon to invest $21B more in Spain with focus on data centers – News

Amazon.com Inc. today announced plans to spend €18 billion, or $21.05 billion, in Spain to expand its data center capacity and server supply chain.

The sum comes on top of a €15.7 billion investment the company detailed in late 2024.

Amazon’s data center construction plan centers on the Spanish region of Aragón, where it already operates cloud infrastructure. The company plans to “build data centers in the province of Teruel, in addition to new facilities in Huesca and Zaragoza.” That means Amazon Web Services Inc. will have servers in all three of Aragón’s provinces once construction is complete.

AWS usually builds its data centers in clusters of three or more. The facilities in a cluster are supported by separate power and networking systems, which means that a failure at one site has a low chance of impacting the others. The data centers tend to be relatively close to one another, which enables them to exchange packets them with low latency.

The cloud and retail giant said some of its data centers’ capacity will be dedicated to artificial intelligence infrastructure. AWS’ existing cloud regions offer access to dozens of instance varieties powered by Nvidia Corp. graphics cards and internally developed AWS Trainium accelerators. 

Amazon estimates that its investments in Spain will create about 29,900 direct, indirect and induced full-time equivalent jobs. Indirect positions are hires made by a company’s business partners, while induced roles are created in the broader economy. Amazon says 6,700 of the openings will be created across its data center operations and the suppliers tasked with building the facilities.

In parallel, the company will build a trio of supply chain facilities designed to support AWS. There will be a server manufacturing plant and a logistics hub described as a manufacturing fulfillment warehouse. The third facility will be dedicated to producing and repairing AI servers.

In December, AWS debuted an AI server called the Trn3 UltraServer that can host up to 144 of its latest AWS Trainium3 chips. Each accelerator provides up to 2.52 petaflops of performance when processing FP8 data. AWS says that Trainium3 is four times more power-efficient than its previous AI chip.

Each Trn3 UltraServer pairs its 144 chips with a networking system called NeuronSwitch-v1. It acts as an all-to-all fabric, which means that the chips inside the system can exchange data directly without going through multiple intermediaries. That direct access improves network performance. 

“We’re supporting Europe’s digital capabilities and expanding cloud and AI infrastructure that businesses and organizations are already using to grow and innovate,” said David Zapolsky, Amazon’s chief global affairs and legal officer.

The initiative is the second multibillion-dollar international investment that Amazon has made since December. Previously, it announced plans to invest more than $35 billion in India through 2030. AWS will reportedly spend $7 billion to expand its data center infrastructure in the city of Hyderabad.

Photo: Amazon