At the AWS Summit, Amazon’s Jaime Valles explained why India matters and how its work here will have far-reaching implications for the world.
At the ongoing AWS Summit at Bengaluru, the company reaffirmed its long-term commitment to India. Jaime Valles, Vice President and General Manager for Asia Pacific and Japan, Amazon Web Services (AWS), emphasised AWS’s dedication to India and the company’s plans for substantial investments in the country over the next few years.
While delivering the opening keynote at the AWS Summit, which Valles described as ‘not a marketing event’ but rather an opportunity ‘to connect’, he touched upon a variety of topics offering a nuanced understanding of the Amazon.com company’s work in India — from honouring partners to empowering Indian talent with AI skills.
The AWS executive also outlined why India is important for AWS, the company’s mission and investments in India, and elaborated on the four pillars of AWS’s India strategy. Valles also highlighted Amazon’s culture of Innovation.
Why does India matter to AWS?
Valles highlighted two reasons why India is vital to AWS. Being a “diverse, unique, multi-geography, multi-language country,” India presents significant challenges that drive innovation at AWS through customer feedback, he said. He added when major Indian software and services companies succeed in India, “over 80 per cent of their business comes from outside of India.” Therefore, investing in India enables AWS to build “a better future for the world”, he said.
He also reiterated AWS’s long-term commitment to India, saying “We are here. We are committed to the long term. We understand the responsibility.” He added AWS has already invested $3.7 billion in infrastructure in India and announced an additional $12.7 billion investment until 2030, totalling $16.4 billion. This investment is estimated to generate 1,30,000 jobs annually and contribute $23.3 billion to India’s GDP.
AWS is also focused on sustainability, aiming to use 100 per cent renewable energy for its data centres by 2025 and be water-positive by 2030. Valles noted, “When you move to the AWS cloud, you reduce 96% of your carbon footprint.”
4 pillars of AWS’s India Strategy
During the keynote, Valles also outlined the four pillars of infrastructure, skills, partners, and security that formed the foundation of AWS’s approach in India. According to him, infrastructure focuses on building local infrastructure to democratise access to technology across the country’s 1.4 billion people. On the other hand, when it comes to skills, AWS has trained over five million people in India since 2017 and aims to train two million more globally in AI by 2025 to address the need for skilled talent.
Talking about partners, Valles emphasised AWS’s commitment to continue collaboration to deliver the solutions customers need through a robust partner ecosystem. He said when it came to security, AWS leverages its experience in providing reliable, secure, scalable, data-driven cloud services, positioning itself as the ideal partner for enterprises adopting generative AI.
Amazon’s culture of innovation
According to Valles, adopting cloud technology requires a ‘cultural transformation’ that empowers teams and enables data-driven decision-making within a secure environment. He cited research showing that 79 per cent of successful digital transformations take a cultural approach, with CEO involvement supporting an environment where “people are allowed to be successful.”
Valles said AWS aims to share its culture of innovation, rooted in processes that encourage experimentation, learning from failures, customer obsession, and leveraging data over instincts. Towards the end of his address, Valles invited attendees to make the most of the AWS Bengaluru summit’s sessions and expressed gratitude. “We look forward to continuing learning, working, and focusing on you. Let’s together build a better India, for all of us, for our people, for the world.”
Source:indianexpress.com