Amazon Web Services has announced the establishment of an AWS region in Mexico. Central and local government entities, cities, schools, businesses, and non-profits will be able to store their data and applications securely in data centres within Mexico. AWS has announced that it plans to invest more than $5 billion in Mexico over the next fifteen years.

AWS has also launched a $300,000 AWS InCommunities Fund in Queretaro to help local groups, schools, and organisations initiate new community projects.

AWS estimates the construction and ongoing operation of the new AWS Region will add approximately $10 billion to Mexico’s gross domestic product (GDP) and support an average of more than 7,000 full-time equivalent jobs at external businesses annually. These jobs, including construction, facility maintenance, engineering, telecommunications, and others within the country’s broader economy, will be part of the AWS supply chain in Mexico.

AWS public sector customers in Mexico include Laureate Education, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), and the governments of the states of Guanajuato, Jalisco and Michoacan.

The AWS Mexico (Central) Region consists of three Availability Zones located far enough from each other to support customers’ business continuity, but near enough to provide low latency for high availability applications that use multiple Availability Zones. Each Availability Zone has independent power, cooling, and physical security and is connected through redundant, ultra-low-latency networks. AWS customers focused on high availability can design their applications to run in multiple Availability Zones to achieve even greater fault tolerance. The AWS Mexico (Central) Region will enable customers with data residency preferences to store their content securely in Mexico, enable customers to achieve even lower latency, and serve demand for cloud services across Latin America.

AWS has also established two AWS Direct Connect locations in Queretaro, allowing customers to establish private connectivity between AWS and their data centre, office, or colocation environment.

In 2023, AWS launched the upskilling programme “Propelling Mexican Talent to the Cloud” – in partnership with the Mexican secretary of Economy – to provide cloud skills training to 130,000 individuals, a goal that was surpassed in 2024, with more than 138,000 people trained. This initiative has helped democratise access to technical knowledge and strengthened the competitiveness of students, teachers, female founders, and entrepreneurs in the digital economy.

Ongoing upskilling programmes include partnerships with universities such as Tecnológico de Monterrey, to impact more than 65,000 people from the university’s ecosystem, and Universidad Panamericana, to train 30,000 members of its community.

“Today’s launch represents a significant milestone in Mexico’s digital transformation journey. The AWS investment of more than $5 billion will both strengthen Mexico’s technology infrastructure and unlock new opportunities for innovation, economic growth, digital inclusion, and job creation,” said Marcelo Ebrard, Mexican secretary of Economy. “With the AWS Mexico (Central) Region, Mexican businesses, entrepreneurs, governments, startups, and civil society will have access to cutting-edge technologies, enabling them to scale their operations, enhance their competitiveness, and drive the development of innovative solutions. We welcome this investment from AWS and look forward to ongoing collaboration that helps foster a vibrant and sustainable digital ecosystem in Mexico.”

“The launch of the AWS Mexico (Central) Region will strengthen our country’s digital infrastructure and open new opportunities for innovation, entrepreneurship, and sustainable socio-economic growth, in line with our vision of a more connected, competitive Mexico,” said Altagracia Gomez Sierra, coordinator of the President’s Business Council. “The new Region will meet the highest energy efficiency standards, support high-quality jobs, and bring a number of community and workforce programmes to help develop local tech talent, in alignment with President Claudia Sheinbaum’s objectives of digital inclusion and technological progress.”

“This launch marks a significant step as we continue to expand our infrastructure and deliver global innovation in machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), and other advanced technologies for our customers,” said Prasad Kalyanaraman, vice president of Infrastructure Services at AWS. “With access to secure and reliable infrastructure, along with a broad set of AWS technologies, this new AWS Region will help businesses across Mexico sit at the centre of AI and ML innovation. We’re proud to deepen our investment in Mexico to help support business transformation, foster technology talent, build cloud skills, and create opportunities for economic growth.”

Amazon is committed to becoming a more sustainable business and reaching net-zero carbon across its operations by 2040, 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement, as part of The Climate Pledge. Amazon co-founded The Climate Pledge and became its first signatory in 2019.