Amazon Web Services (AWS), a subsidiary of e-commerce behemoth Amazon, will increase its presence in Mexico in early 2023.
The firm, a provider of cloud computing services to individuals, companies and governments, will open a “local zone,” or hub, in Querétaro in the first quarter of next year, according to the firm’s Mexico director Luis Velasco.
It will also open new offices in Guadalajara and Monterrey in the first three months of next year, Velasco said at the AWS tech conference in Mexico City last week.
According to the AWS website, local zones are a type of infrastructure deployment that places computing, storage, database, and other select AWS services close to large population and industry centers.
Velasco told the news agency Reuters that the Querétaro local zone will boost bandwidth for AWS clients, which will aid online activities such as video streaming. Reuters reported that AWS local zones “run applications for real-time gaming, hybrid migrations, media and entertainment content creation, and engineering simulations.”
Business Insider México said that the Querétaro local zone could help clients to comply with data localization requirements.
Data localization is “the act of storing data on any device that is physically present within the borders of a specific country where the data was generated,” according to IT education site Techopedia.
“Free flow of digital data, especially data which could impact government operations or operations in a region, is restricted by some governments. Many attempt to protect and promote security across borders and therefore encourage data localization.”
Business Insider México said that the Querétaro hub would benefit industries such as gaming, telecommunications and financial services as it will allow data to be transferred more quickly.
AWS already has an “edge location” in the state of Querétaro, whose capital, Santiago de Querétaro, is about 220 kilometers northwest of Mexico City. “Edge locations are AWS data centers designed to deliver services with the lowest latency possible,” according to Last Week in AWS, a website that reports on the company.
Jaime Vallés, AWS’s vice president for Latin America, told the EFE news agency that the company will keep investing in Mexico and the broader region while its customers “continue asking” for its services. He didn’t disclose how much AWS was spending to open the new local zone and the offices in Guadalajara and Monterrey but did say that the cloud computing market in Latin America has the potential to be worth US $500 billion.
Demand for cloud services has grown 31% since 2020 but there is still “enormous opportunity for growth,” Vallés said.
Velasco said AWS will collaborate with Mexican companies to expand its activities here. Telecommunications company Totalplay, for example, will partner with AWS to increase the latter’s presence in the Mexican cloud computing market, according to Fernando Zamora, Totalplay’s director of products and marketing.
Zamora explained that Totalplay – owned by business magnate Ricardo Salinas – will provide consulting for AWS’s cloud services.
He said that Mexico is the fourth most important cloud computing market in the Americas after the United States, Canada and Brazil. The Mexican market was worth $1.4 billion in 2021 but could grow to $2.7 billion in 2025, Zamora said at the AWS tech conference.
AWS describes itself as “the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform, offering over 200 fully featured services from data centers globally.”
“Millions of customers – including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies – are using AWS to lower costs, become more agile, and innovate faster,” it says on its website.
With reports from Reuters, Business Insider and EFE
