AWS Europe (Spain) Region allows customers to run workloads and store data securely in Spain while serving end users with even lower latency
The new AWS Region is estimated to support more than 1,300 full-time jobs annually through a planned investment of more than $2.5 billion (approx. 2.5 billion euros) in Spain over 10 years
AWS is launching a $150,000 (approx. 150,000 euros) AWS InCommunities Fund in Aragón to support local community projects
Tens of thousands of customers in the Iberian Peninsula, including BBVA, Cabify, Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, Meliá International Hotels, Renfe, Repsol, and the Spanish Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security, and Migration, are innovating on AWS
SEATTLE—Nov. 15, 2022—Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced the launch of its eighth infrastructure Region in Europe, the AWS Europe (Spain) Region. Starting today, developers, startups, entrepreneurs, and enterprises, as well as government, education, and nonprofit organizations, will have even greater choice for running their applications and serving end users from data centers located in Spain, using advanced AWS technologies to drive innovation. AWS estimates that its projected spending on the construction and operation of the new Region will support more than 1,300 full-time jobs, with a planned $2.5 billion (approx. 2.5 billion euros) investment in Spain over 10 years. AWS also estimates that the new Region will add $1.8 billion (approx. 1.8 billion euros) to the Spanish gross domestic product (GDP) over 10 years. As part of its commitment to the Region, AWS also announced a $150,000 (approx. 150,000 euros) AWS InCommunities Fund in Aragón, where the AWS Europe (Spain) Region is located, to help local groups, schools, and organizations initiate new community projects. For more information about AWS Global Infrastructure, visit aws.amazon.com/about-aws/global-infrastructure.
“The cloud enables organizations of all types and sizes to speed up innovation, improve business processes, and reinvent experiences for their customers and end users,” said Prasad Kalyanaraman, vice president of Infrastructure Services at AWS. “We are delivering on our promise to build new world-class infrastructure locally to help customers in Spain achieve the highest levels of security, availability, and resilience. We are also proud to be investing in Aragón to support community projects led by local schools and organizations. Our investment in the AWS Europe (Spain) Region reflects AWS's long-term commitment to support the country's economic development, job creation, and business growth.”
“We welcome the investment of one of the world’s leading technology companies in Spain,” said Pedro Sánchez, prime minister of Spain. “The opening of the AWS Europe (Spain) Region is a significant milestone that helps position our country as a leading digital economy”.
With the launch of the AWS Europe (Spain) Region, AWS has 93 Availability Zones across 29 geographic regions, with announced plans to launch 18 more Availability Zones across six AWS Regions in Australia, Canada, India, Israel, New Zealand, and Thailand. AWS Regions are composed of Availability Zones that place infrastructure in separate and distinct geographic locations. The AWS Europe (Spain) Region consists of three Availability Zones and joins seven existing AWS European Regions in Dublin, Frankfurt, London, Milan, Paris, Stockholm, and Zurich. Availability Zones are located far enough from each other to support customers’ business continuity, but near enough to provide low latency for high-availability applications that use multiple Availability Zones. Each Availability Zone has independent power, cooling, and physical security and is connected through redundant, ultra-low latency networks. AWS customers focused on high availability can design their applications to run in multiple Availability Zones to achieve even greater fault tolerance.
The launch of the AWS Europe (Spain) Region provides customers building applications that comply with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) access to another secure AWS Region in the European Union (EU) that helps meet the highest levels of security, compliance, and data protection. AWS is also Esquema Nacional de Seguridad (ENS) High certified, meaning its infrastructure meets the highest levels of security and compliance for government agencies and public organizations in Spain.
Customers welcome the AWS Europe (Spain) Region
Organizations in Spain are among millions of active customers using AWS every month in more than 190 countries around the world, including tens of thousands of customers in the Iberian Peninsula and more than 75% of companies listed on IBEX35, the Spanish stock market index. Enterprises including Acciona, Atresmedia, Ávoris, Banco Santander, Bankinter, BBVA, CAF, Celsa, Cepsa, Dorna Sports, Endesa, Grup Mediapro, Grupo Henneo, Hijos de Rivera, Madrileña Red de Gas, Mahou San Miguel, Mapfre, Mediaset España, Meliá International Hotels (Meliá), Naturgy, NH Hoteles, Repsol, Santalucía, Securitas Direct, and Volotea choose AWS to enhance agility and innovation. Spanish public sector organizations and institutions such as Cantabrian Health Service; City of Madrid; Correos; Government of Andalusia; Government of Aragon; Renfe; Royal Spanish Academy; Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Food; Spanish Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security, and Migration; University Jaume I; and University Oberta of Catalunya are using AWS to drive cost savings and better serve citizens. Spanish startups such as Cabify, Devo, Fever, Fintonic, Flywire, Glovo, Holaluz, Job and Talent, LactApp, LetGo, Monei, Odilo, RavenPack, Signaturit, Smile and Learn, Telecoming, Wallbox, Wanup, Webbeds, and Wefox are building their businesses on AWS to scale rapidly and expand their geographic reach. Small and medium-sized businesses in Spain including Ayesa, Cash Converters, Fashiola, Help Flash, Imagina Energía, Materiales de Fábrica, Spherag, and Wikiloc are adopting AWS to boost security and scalability.
BBVA is a customer-centric global financial services group operating in more than 25 countries with total assets of $738 billion, more than 87 million customers, and over 114,000 employees. “AWS has helped us develop new projects quickly, expand rapidly, and increase security while complying with European and international regulations. Together with AWS, we have developed innovative cloud projects like BBVA C-fit, a platform built on AWS to simplify the management of market data used to set prices or manage book risk. We also developed and implemented a fully compliant contactless payments system, which allowed us to significantly reduce cost with on-demand scaling,” said José Luis Elechiguerra Joven, global head of Engineering at BBVA. “We welcome the AWS Region in Spain to help us continue accelerating our digital transformation and provide the best banking experiences for our customers.”
As Spain’s first ever “unicorn”—a tech startup reaching $1 billion in market valuation—Cabify operates a multi-mobility application in more than 40 cities in eight countries that connects more than 42 million users and companies with the means of transportation that best suits their needs. Cabify relies on AWS to power its core app and track vehicle locations, which enables drivers and passengers to interact. “AWS’s global reach is extremely important for a technology company like Cabify, which offers real-time services to users and focuses on sustainable innovation. AWS provides Cabify with the reliability needed in this time-critical sector. It has also allowed us to reduce the latency of access to critical databases from two seconds to less than 45 milliseconds, giving drivers and passengers a top-quality experience,” said Carlos Herrera, chief technology officer at Cabify. “This new AWS Region represents a huge step toward creating a local tech community in Spain. About 80% of our tech team is based in Spain, so moving our cloud investment to our country contributes to developing local technical talent. At Cabify, we work tirelessly to be at the forefront of privacy and security for our users, and the AWS Europe (Spain) Region greatly simplifies our privacy compliance with European and Spanish regulations.”
Gerencia de Informática de la Seguridad Social (GISS) is the Spanish agency of the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security, and Migration in charge of processing and managing applications for the Minimum Vital Income, a Spanish public aid to people with fewer resources. “The Minimum Vital Income aid was announced in May 2020, during the worst months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and its implementation required urgency. With AWS, GISS found the agility and security needed for the development and launch of the service in six weeks. The scalability and elasticity of AWS infrastructure allowed us to manage 150,000 applications on the first day,” said Javier Fernández, director of Innovation and Quality at GISS. “AWS enabled us to build and scale up quickly to offer a new public service to Spanish citizens. By investing in a Region in Spain, AWS is promoting the digitization of public administration in Spain and powering innovation on behalf of Spanish citizens.”
With more than 100 years of history, the Hospital Clínic of Barcelona is a leading public healthcare provider in Spain. “We are collaborating with AWS to promote digital innovation in health care and improve patient service within the public health system through cloud technology. We are migrating our core SAP environments, including up to 9 terabytes of data, to AWS to improve the availability and security of our corporate systems, optimize costs, and scale our technological infrastructure. We are also building a data lake that will run on AWS to gain visibility into internal and patient-oriented operations, allowing us to make better decisions based on real data. The Hospital Clínic is also aiming to become a smart hospital through the use of AWS’s artificial intelligence and machine learning services such as Amazon Rekognition to track the movement of materials in the hospital to optimize the logistic chain and revolutionize patient care,” said Josep M. Campistol, chief executive officer at Hospital Clínic of Barcelona. “We see value in using the cloud to increase the efficiency of processes and focus more on delivering predictive and personalized medicine to serve patients. The new AWS Region in Spain will encourage us and many other health care organizations to continue accelerating patient-centered innovation.”
Meliá is one of the world's largest hotel chains, operating more than 390 hotels across more than 40 countries and four continents. "Since we started working with AWS, we have deployed high-quality technology at a lower cost, increased our business agility, and revolutionized the whole customer journey. After migrating to AWS, we reduced our compute costs by 60%, a seven-figure total in savings. The average central reservation system response time has decreased from 234 milliseconds to 160 milliseconds, improving the customer experience for online booking. With AWS, we have also cut the time to market for new projects by 75%, accelerating our pace of innovation and the launch of new services for our customers," said Chris Palomino, vice president for Global Information Technology (GIT) at Meliá. "We are already running the majority of our infrastructure on the world's leading cloud. The new AWS Region in Spain will allow us to focus on strengthening our business capabilities, rely on the best technology to create innovative services for our customers, and be at the forefront of innovation in the tourism industry."
Renfe, the Spanish national railway network with more than 500 million passengers a year and 5,000 trains running every day in Spain, works with AWS as part of its digitization journey. “AWS is a strategic technological ally for us. Using AWS Lambda and Amazon Connect, we are currently working on a mobility digital project called dōcō, an innovative, comprehensive mobility platform model that offers various transport options for customers. AWS Cloud services allow Renfe to streamline developments, scale quickly based on customer demand, and reduce costs. AWS is also helping our employees get up to speed on cloud technologies, providing free access to seminars, best practices, and hundreds of training resources,” said Manel Villalante i Llauradó, general director of Development and Strategy at Renfe. “The AWS Europe (Spain) Region will help us accelerate our digital transformation to provide more efficient public services for the benefit of all Spaniards and visitors. The new AWS Region will also help us accelerate digital initiatives, such as the modernization of high-demand applications that require low latency, and become a data-driven digital company.”
Repsol, a Fortune 500 company founded in Spain, is a global multi-energy company that is leading the energy transition with its ambition of achieving zero net emissions by 2050. Present throughout the energy value chain, the company employs 24,000 people worldwide and distributes its products in more than 90 countries to around 24 million customers. “We are working with AWS to accelerate the digital transformation of our operations through cloud computing, which fosters agility and innovation while supporting our sustainability goals. Repsol and AWS are working together to support a sustainable energy transition through the use of new cloud services. We are using high performance computing, digital twins, and natural language processing in our business, and Repsol is providing renewable energy for Amazon’s global operations,” said Juan Manuel García, chief information officer and chief digital officer at Repsol. “The launch of the AWS Europe (Spain) Region is great news for companies that, like Repsol, are committed to developing innovative digital solutions in the cloud.”
Spain-based AWS Partners also welcome the AWS Europe (Spain) Region
The AWS Partner Network (APN) includes tens of thousands of independent software vendors (ISVs) and systems integrators (SIs) around the world. AWS Partners build innovative solutions and services on AWS, and the APN helps by providing business, technical, marketing, and go-to-market support to customers. AWS SIs, consulting partners, and ISVs help enterprise and public sector customers migrate to AWS, deploy mission-critical applications, and provide a full range of monitoring, automation, and management services for customers' cloud environments. Examples of AWS Partners in Spain include Accenture, ACKStorm, Anadat, Apser, Arrow, Atos, ATSistemas, Audiense, BBVA Next, Capgemini, Claranet, Crayon, Deloitte, Devo, Devoteam, DXC, Evolutio, Fujitsu, IBM, Indra, Inetum, Ingram Micro, Itera, IThinkUPC, Keepler, Kyndryl, Logicalis, MagicBeans, NTT Data, Optiva Media, Outsystems, Paradigma Digital, RedPoints, Seidor, SoftwareOne, Syntax, TD Synnex, TechEdge, Telefónica Tech, T-Systems, and Zoi. For the full list of AWS Partners, visit aws.amazon.com/partners.
NTT DATA, the ninth-largest IT services company in the world and an AWS Partner since 2010, helps customers plan, assess, develop, and deliver AWS solutions that transform their businesses by combining a global reach with local customer focus. “We work with AWS to help organizations in Spain innovate, scale their businesses, and accelerate growth. Today’s launch of the AWS Region in Spain is a milestone for the acceleration of digital transformation in the country. The AWS Europe (Spain) Region will offer additional advantages to our customers such as low latency, energy efficiency, and compliance with in-country data requirements. With the AWS Region and our highly skilled team of cloud experts, we will help our customers migrate applications to AWS faster, quickly develop new cloud-native services, and modernize their businesses,” said Sergi Biosca, chief executive officer at NTT DATA Spain. “We continuously train our talent in cloud technologies, and we have certificated more than 550 people in AWS in the last two years to provide transformative solutions to our customers and boost Spain’s progress.”
AWS Advanced Tier Services Partner Telefónica Tech is a leading company in digital transformation that offers a wide range of services and integrated technological solutions for cybersecurity, cloud, Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and blockchain. “Telefónica Tech uses acens, a Telefónica Tech company, as a specialized center on AWS to expand our service portfolio with migration, security, and optimization services in response to the increasing demand for AWS services in Spain. Telefónica Tech has also obtained AWS Security Competency and is part of the Authority to Operate on AWS Program, thanks to our deep expertise in architecting, configuring, deploying, and managing AWS workloads to help meet security, privacy, and compliance requirements in a variety of sectors,” said María Jesús Almazor, chief executive officer of Cyber Security and Cloud at Telefónica Tech. "With the new AWS Spain Region, we look forward to helping our customers move workloads to AWS and storing data in-country. The low-latency access and local data residency of the new Region will allow our customers to benefit from the agility, scalability, security, flexibility, and reliability of AWS.”
Upskilling Spain’s workforce
AWS continues to invest in upskilling developers, students, and the next generation of IT leaders in Spain through programs like AWS re/Start, AWS GetIT, AWS Academy, and AWS Educate. Since 2017, AWS has helped train more than 100,000 individuals in Spain with cloud computing skills. These AWS education programs help learners of all backgrounds and experiences prepare for careers in the cloud. From college courses to full-time training programs and self-paced learning content, AWS education programs offer access to the skills needed to begin a career in cloud computing. AWS and the Madrid Chamber of Commerce teamed up to bring the AWS re/Start program to Spain in 2020. The AWS re/Start skills training program prepares individuals for entry-level roles in cloud computing and connects them to potential employers. AWS also collaborates with Spanish regional governments to introduce the AWS Academy program into vocational training programs. Over two years, AWS estimates that 6,000 students in Andalusia and 2,000 in Aragon will access AWS training to prepare for in-demand cloud careers. These programs are part of Amazon’s commitment to help 29 million people around the world grow their tech skills with free cloud computing training by 2025.
Commitment to Sustainability
Amazon is committed to becoming a more sustainable business and reaching net-zero carbon across its operations by 2040, 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement, as part of The Climate Pledge. Amazon co-founded The Climate Pledge and became its first signatory in 2019. As part of its Climate Pledge commitment, Amazon is on a path to power its operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025, five years ahead of the original 2030 target. Amazon is the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy, and as of the end of 2021, reached 85% renewable energy across its business. Amazon announced 16 renewable energy projects in Spain with more than 1.5 gigawatts of clean energy capacity. Once fully operational, Amazon's renewable energy portfolio in Spain will generate the equivalent amount of electricity needed to power 850,000 homes in Spain each year. Organizations that move compute workloads to AWS can benefit from the net effect of Amazon’s sustainability efforts to reduce their carbon footprint.
About Amazon Web Services
For over 15 years, Amazon Web Services has been the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud offering. AWS has been continually expanding its services to support virtually any cloud workload, and it now has more than 200 fully featured services for compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, security, hybrid, virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR), media, and application development, deployment, and management from 93 Availability Zones within 29 geographic regions, with announced plans for 18 more Availability Zones and six more AWS Regions in Australia, Canada, India, Israel, New Zealand, and Thailand. Millions of customers—including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—trust AWS to power their infrastructure, become more agile, and lower costs. To learn more about AWS, visit aws.amazon.com.
About Amazon
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