AWS opens Melbourne region, to invest $4.5bn by 2037

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has opened a cloud region in Melbourne in a move that will see the cloud giant invest $4.5bn (A$6.8bn) in Australia by 2037.

The Melbourne region will enable local customers with data residency requirements to store data in Australia while providing them with lower latency to improve productivity, business operations and application performance.

AWS’s investment in the new region will go towards the construction of datacentres, operational expenses related to utilities and facility management, and purchases of goods and services from local businesses, benefitting over 2,500 full-time jobs, including construction, engineering, telecoms and other roles in the broader economy.

An economic impact study conducted by AWS estimated that the construction and operation of the Melbourne cloud region would add about $10.6bn to Australia’s GDP by 2037.

“Australia has a strong history of technical innovation, and the launch of a second AWS region in Australia provides even greater resilience and enables more customers to develop cloud-based applications that help fuel economic development across the country,” said Prasad Kalyanaraman, vice-president of infrastructure services at AWS.

Tim Pallas, Victoria’s minister for trade and investment, noted the importance of having access to secure cloud infrastructure for Victorian businesses, adding that “providing more choice will deliver a boost to the economy, support innovation and help to create new jobs locally”.

Existing AWS customer ANZ Bank is planning to deploy its AWS targeted workloads and applications in the Melbourne region, which is expected to serve as its long-term primary AWS location, according to Gerard Florian, group executive of technology at ANZ Bank.

“The lower latency and higher performance we expect of the new AWS region in Melbourne will help us improve our customer experience and accelerate our cloud adoption,” he said.

For RMIT University, a public research university in Melbourne, the new cloud region will provide additional capacity to help researchers, students and academics deliver world-class research outcomes, said Calum Drummond, deputy vice-chancellor of research and innovation and vice-president at RMIT.

“We recently launched RMIT University’s AWS Cloud Supercomputing facility, known as Race. RMIT researchers are using Race to advance battery technologies, photonics and geospatial science. The low latency and high throughput of the AWS region in Melbourne, combined with our high-bandwidth private fibre network, will enable researchers and students to innovate beyond the limitations of traditional on-premises datacentres,” he added.

The Melbourne cloud region follows the recent launch of an AWS Local Zone in Perth in a move by AWS to expand its footprint across key markets in the Asia-Pacific region. AWS has been operating a cloud region in Sydney since 2012.