Amazon’s first Indian AWS data centers launch in Mumbai

Amazon’s cloud computing arm has officially introduced its first data center infrastructure in India with the launch of two data center locations in Mumbai.

Though thousands of Indian companies were already using Amazon Web Services (AWS), in June last year the tech titan announced its intention to target Indian customers by rolling out dedicated data centers in the region. There are many reasons for doing so — for one, local server infrastructure makes the transfer of data between clients and Amazon’s servers faster. But perhaps more importantly, local data centers help satisfy “data sovereignty” concerns, as data stored digitally is subject to the laws of the country in which it is located. Amazon had previously revealed that some of its customers had requested local server infrastructure for just that reason.

“Indian startups and enterprises have been using AWS for many years —  with most Indian technology start-ups building their entire businesses on AWS, and numerous enterprises running mission-critical, core applications on AWS,” said Andy Jassy, AWS CEO, in a press release. “These same 75,000 Indian customers, along with others anxious to start using AWS, have asked for an AWS India Region so they can move their applications that require low latency and data sovereignty.”

Launched in 2006, AWS saves companies from requiring their own on-site servers. Prior to India, there were 12 AWS regions globally — the U.S. West (California and Oregon), U.S. East (Virginia), Brazil, Europe (Germany and Ireland), East Asia (Tokyo, Seoul, and Beijing), Southeast Asia (Singapore), and Australia (Sydney). There is also an AWS “GovCloud” built specifically for government agencies in U.S. Northwest. The company is expected to launch additional data center regions in Canada, China, and the U.K. in the near future.

AWS has emerged as one of Amazon’s most lucrative businesses, and it is now at the forefront of the cloud infrastructure market, ahead of the likes of Google, Microsoft, IBM, VMware, and Rackspace. It netted the company $2.5 billion in Q1 2016 — up 63.8 percent from the year previous — effectively making it a $10 billion annual business.