Amazon Gets $1 Billion Tax Break To Build New Data Centers, AWS Regions

Amazon has been granted an estimated $1 billion in tax breaks to build five new data centers in Oregon to boost its AWS cloud services reach.

Amazon is set to build five new data centers in Oregon after local officials approved tax breaks worth an estimated $1 billion for the cloud behemoth.

The Seattle-based company spends billions each year on building new data centers both in the U.S. and internationally to expand its cloud computing and cloud services reach via Amazon Web Services (AWS). Amazon’s AWS cloud business has an annual run rate of over $85 billion and is the worldwide cloud market share leader.

Amazon already has several data centers in the Morrow County area of Oregon, with the company being the county’s largest taxpayer.

Local officials in the county recently approved tax breaks estimated to be roughly $1 billion, which includes incentives that exempt the company from paying nearly three-quarters of the property taxes other businesses in the region pay, according to the Associated Press.

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“We’ve been an active member of the eastern Oregon communities since 2011, investing more than $15.6 billion while supporting thousands of local jobs,” Amazon said in a statement. “Investments like these create and support high paying, highly skilled jobs in local communities, and projects that benefit local education, healthcare, public services and more.”

AWS Regions Expansion

In 2023, AWS is continuing to pour billions into expanding its cloud computing footprint by building and equipping new data centers across the globe that power AWS Regions.

Although there is no timeframe on when the five new data centers in Oregon will be built, Amazon is constantly adding new AWS Regions which enable AWS cloud services.

For example, AWS this year unveiled plans to invest $35 billion in building data centers across Virginia by 2024 to increase its cloud computing capabilities.

In April, AWS announced it will spend $9 billion in Australia over the next five year to enhance its Australia-based data centers. Additionally, AWS launched two new AWS Local Zones in Chile this year.

Each AWS Region consists of at least one or more Availability Zones. These zones place AWS infrastructure in locations that are far enough from each other to support customers’ business continuity but near enough to offer low latency for applications that use multiple Availability Zones.

In 2022, the company launched new AWS Regions in India, Spain, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates. The technology giant is planning to launch 15 more Availability Zones and five more AWS Regions in Canada, Israel, New Zealand and Thailand.

In total, AWS now has around 100 Availability Zones across 31 geographic regions.