AWS to Invest $4 Billion in Chile for New Cloud Region

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced a $4 billion investment to establish a new cloud infrastructure region in Chile.

The new AWS region, expected to be operational by the end of 2026, will be located in Santiago and feature three availability zones.

Designed to support advanced cloud computing services — including artificial intelligence and machine learning—the infrastructure will also power generative AI projects.

This marks AWS’s third region in Latin America, following Brazil and Mexico. The U.S. cloud giant is already serving a string of regional firms, including retailer Cencosud, e-commerce giant MercadoLibre, LATAM Airlines, and dozens of mining firms.

However, the rapid expansion of data centers has sparked growing environmental concerns in Chile, which has endured over 15 years of drought.

In a notable case, Google was forced to revise its $200 million data center plans in the country after facing legal pushback over environmental permits.

To address such issues, AWS will use air and evaporative cooling technologies for 96% of the year and limit water-based cooling to levels equivalent to the consumption of just two average Chilean households annually.

AWS also plans to bolster Chile’s tech workforce through training programs such as AWS Academy and AWS Educate. According to its statement, more than 100,000 people in the country have already participated in these initiatives.

Chile has long been a favourite for data center operators. In addition to Google and AWS, Microsoft, Equinix, and Huawei also own data centers in the country.