Amazon Web Services (AWS) has unveiled plans to invest$5 billion in Thailand, where it says it will also set up a new cloud region. The 15-year investment roadmap will include providing support for the Asean country's early-stage startups and upskilling efforts. 

The new cloud region in the capital city of Bangkok will comprise three availability zones and mark its first such facility in Thailand. AWS currently operates 10 regions in Asia-Pacific, including Singapore, Australia, Indonesia, Japan, India, and South Korea. 

AWS did not offer a timeline on when the Bangkok region would be operational. It currently has 10 CloudFront edge points in the Thai city, which are part of its global content delivery network.

The cloud vendor's customer base in Thailand includes PTT Global Public Company, CP All, Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University, and The Stock Exchange of Thailand. 

In a statement released Tuesday, AWS said its$5 billion (190 billion baht) investment would span over 15 years and go towards driving local cloud adoption and upskilling efforts. 

The vendor said it ran several training programmes in Thailand, including AWS Academy and AWS re/Start, and eight local higher education institutions had integrated its Academy courses with their respective curriculum. 

AWS added that it would work with the ministry of Digital Economy and Society of Thailand to develop a skills development plan, which would include providing on-demand digital courses and support to train more than 1,200 employees with cloud skills. It also would encompass training events for government employees to develop relevant skills for implementing cloud technologies. 

Its investment would further support early-stage startups through the AWS Activate scheme, the vendor said, adding that the initiative offered expertise, technical support, and business mentorship. Startups also would be able to tap up to$100,000 in AWS service credits under the programme. 

AWS added that it currently worked with local venture capital firms, startup accelerators, and incubators to drive startups' growth in the cloud. Such partnerships included accelerator organisations AIS The Startup and Stormbreaker. 

Thai Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Energy Supattanapong Punmeechaow said: "AWS' plan to build data centres in Thailand is a significant milestone that will bring advanced cloud computing services to more organisations and help us deliver our Thailand 4.0 ambition to create a digitised, value-based economy."

AWS' vice president of infrastructure services Prasad Kalyanaraman said local businesses would be able to tap various AWS technologies through the new region, including artificial intelligence and machine learning, data analytics, and Internet of Things. "With these new tools, AWS is empowering governments to better engage with citizens, enterprises to innovate for their next phase of growth, and entrepreneurs to build businesses and compete on a global scale," Kalyanaraman said. 

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