AWS plans multimillion-dollar investment in Brazil
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has pledged to invest 1 billion reais ($233 million) in the expansion of its infrastructure in the Brazilian state of São Paulo.
The investment, to be made over the next two years, was announced by São Paulo governor João Doria, after a meeting with Shannon Kellogg, director of public policy at AWS and other company executives including the country manager for Brazil, Cleber Morais.
"With this important investment by AWS, Amazon's cloud computing company, we will generate more jobs, technology and opportunities for startups as well, placing the state of São Paulo in the global map," Doria said.
Other than this generic official statement, no additional information was disclosed around the expansion plans of the cloud computing giant. AWS set up its first Sao Paulo datacenter in 2012.
A few years later, the company announced that it would be using the customer cost-consciousness driven by economic instability to grow its business in Brazil and increase its influence in the local technology community.
Cloud computing and artificial intelligence will be the core areas of focus when it comes to investment in technology in Brazil in 2020, according to a study released last month by technology firm CI&T.
However, immaturity around cloud security is a challenge, as companies in Brazil can't keep up with sector advances, according to a separate study by Symantec. Another challenge mentioned by the vast majority of the study participants is lack of visibility of cloud workloads.