(May 7): Amazon.com Inc plans to spend US$9 billion (RM42.66 billion) expanding its cloud computing infrastructure in Singapore, the latest global tech company to boost investment in Southeast Asia.

The outlay, to be done over the next four years, doubles Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) investment in Singapore and helps it meet growing customer demand for cloud services and accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), the company said Tuesday.

AWS, which sells software and data storage for rent from massive server farms, has been expanding its footprint outside the US in recent years, with much of that investment targeting Asian markets. Companies from Microsoft Corp to Apple Inc are also growing in the Southeast Asian market of more than 650 million people, partly to diversify away from China and reduce geopolitical risks amid tensions between Beijing and Washington.

Including the Singapore investment, AWS has this year announced plans to spend about US$35 billion outside the US, including in Japan, Saudi Arabia and Mexico. The company is also setting up clusters of data centres in Malaysia and Thailand.

Amazon last month said AWS was on track to bring in more than US$100 billion in sales over the course of a year for the first time. Amazon executives say AWS is benefiting from corporate technology modernization projects as well as demand for AI services.

The announcement came as part of an AWS Asean Summit in Singapore, where AI will take centre stage with a series of initiatives from the US company. The city-state was the first data centre region AWS established in Asia.

Singapore has grown into a hub for US businesses in Asia, such as Meta Platforms Inc and Alphabet Inc, and is seen as a gateway to the broader Southeast Asia region, which is expected to grow at a rapid clip.

Microsoft, Amazon’s biggest rival in cloud services, did a tour of local economies last week, with chief executive officer Satya Nadella announcing a series of new investments and initiatives for Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.