E-commerce giant Amazon (AMZN) plans to spend $11 billion U.S. to expand its artificial intelligence (A.I.) infrastructure.
Amazon says that it plans to invest heavily in Georgia to support cloud computing and A.I. technologies related to Amazon Web Services (AWS), its cloud computing unit.
Amazon needs to develop data centers and advanced infrastructure to support it’s A.I. innovations and cloud services.
The investment announcement from Amazon comes about a week after Microsoft (MSFT) said that it plans to spend $80 billion U.S. to develop data centers for training A.I. models.
A.I. applications and models require huge computing power and energy resources.
This is driving demand for data centers that enable technology companies to link thousands of microchips and processors in massive clusters.
In a statement, Amazon said that its investment in Georgia will create 550 new high-skilled jobs.
The rise in A.I. and cloud computing has also driven a significant increase in U.S. electricity consumption, as data centers consume vast amounts of power.
Amazon has said that it has secured multiple agreements with U.S. utilities to supply power to its current and future data centers.
The stock of Amazon has increased 49% in the past 12 months and currently trades at $222.11 U.S. per share.
