AWS charts long-term plan on India business

Las Vegas: Within days of announcing mega investments for building in Hyderabad its second data centre cluster in India, Amazon Web Services (AWS) on Monday said it is excited about the India market, where cloud adoption offers massive headroom for growth. Pledging its long-term commitment to the India market, AWS, Amazon's cloud computing unit, said it expects global uncertainties to accelerate the decisions by companies to opt for flexible, on-demand cloud infrastructure to pare costs, gain efficiencies and drive business innovation.

"Cloud reacts well to uncertainty," Puneet Chandok, president (commercial business), AWS India and South Asia, Amazon Internet Services Pvt Ltd (AISPL) told. Chandok, while speaking on the sidelines of AWS' annual flagship event 're:Invent 2022' explained that in times of slowdown, cloud technology offers flexibility as compared to conventional models where businesses own their entire IT infrastructure.

"That is the reason we see demand like never before for India," he said. The comment comes at a time when choppy global economic environment has prompted market commentators to flash warnings, and large global companies are bracing against an imminent recession. "When times are good for startups, they start building on innovation and for that they need tech and cloud. When times are tough, they still need technology and cloud because of lower costs and pay per use model," Chandok said, adding that cloud model helps companies get rid of "technical debt or technical legacy" issues typically associated with owning and managing computing infrastructure. While traditionally, insurance, and media and entertainment verticals in India have been quick to adopt cloud, now banks, manufacturing companies, fintech, healthtech and gametech too are increasing opting for cloud services. It is early days yet and cloud penetration is in low single digit, he pointed out.