Amazon has been expanding its presence in Africa for years. As the company celebrates its 20th anniversary on the continent, it is setting ambitious goals to achieve by 2029.

Amazon.com Inc's cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services (AWS), plans to invest an additional $1.7 billion in Africa by 2029 to expand its cloud and artificial intelligence services, the company said on Thursday. The investment was announced at the AWS Summit 2024 in Johannesburg.

"The AWS community in Sub-Saharan Africa is thriving," said Chris Erasmus, AWS Managing Director for South Africa. "We have thousands of AWS customers in Sub-Saharan Africa today, and we see this as an incredibly strategic growth area for us. [...] We have over 6,000 partners helping us build and deliver our business value."

The investment is part of Amazon's celebration of its 20th anniversary in Africa. In 2020, the company followed Google by launching data centers on the continent. In October 2024, it launched its online retail service in South Africa, the second African country where it has introduced this service, following Egypt.

Amazon's investment will also focus on generative AI, highlighting Amazon Bedrock, its platform that enables businesses to create and develop generative AI applications.

Adoni Conrad Quenum