Amazon Fuels AI Expansion with Massive Renewable Energy Investment in Australia

Tech giant bets big on green power to drive next-gen artificial intelligence growth—because even algorithms need to virtue-signal now.

Amazon''s latest play? A continent-sized clean energy push down under. The move positions AWS to dominate AI infrastructure while dodging carbon guilt—Wall Street analysts already pricing in the ESG bump.

When your data centers consume more energy than small countries, going green isn''t just PR—it''s survival. Especially when your cloud division''s growth depends on power-hungry AI models.

Bonus jab: Nothing like renewable energy credits to offset those AI compute costs—sustainability meets shareholder value in perfect corporate harmony.

Amazon powers AI growth with major clean energy push in Australia

As part of the expansion, Amazon will also build three new solar farms in Victoria and Queensland to power the growing infrastructure and support its clean energy goals. Amazon will commit to buying a combined capacity of more than 170 megawatts across these farms.

Amazon operates eight solar and wind energy projects across New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria, which help power its Australian data centers and fulfillment facilities. Once all 11 of its planned renewable energy projects are online, they are expected to produce over 1.4 million megawatt-hours of clean energy annually—enough to power approximately 290,000 Australian homes each year.

Between 2020 and 2022, Amazon invested an estimated A$467 million in renewable energy projects in Australia. In 2024, Amazon was Australia’s third-largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy and remains the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy globally. 

As per a study by Accenture, Australian organizations migrating compute-heavy AI workloads to AWS can reduce carbon emissions by up to 94% compared with on-premises data centers. This is because of AWS’s infrastructure hardware, power, cooling, and carbon-free energy procurement efficiencies.

AWS powers Australia’s AI ambitions with expanding cloud footprint

The investment aligns with the Australian government’s goal to boost productivity and economic growth through AI-driven innovation. 

It will equip hundreds of thousands of Amazon Web Services (AWS) customers and partners with advanced cloud and AI tools, enabling large-scale innovation while ensuring compliance with local data residency and regulatory standards. The Department of Industry, Science and Resources estimates that AI and automation could add up to A$600 billion to Australia’s GDP annually by 2030.

AWS’s presence in Australia began in 2012 with the opening of the AWS Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region. This was followed by the opening of the AWS Asia Pacific in 2023, including the country’s first AWS Local Zones in Perth. 

In April 2024, AWS established Amazon Bedrock, AWS’s fully managed generative AI service, in the AWS Asia Pacific (Sydney) Region. Moreover, in July 2024, the Australian Government linked with AWS to provide a “Top Secret” AWS Cloud to deliver cloud innovation in national security and defense and enhance the nation’s defense and intelligence capabilities.

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