AWS launches AWS Asia Pacific (Taipei) Region

Amazon will also be investing US$5 billion to support the construction, connection, operation, and maintenance of its data centers in Taiwan.

AWS continues to grow its capabilities in Asia with the launch of AWS Asia Pacific (Taipei) Region. The new region will enable organizations of all sizes to build and scale with confidence using comprehensive suite of cloud services, ranging from foundational compute and storage to advanced analytics and AI, all while meeting local data residency requirements.

The AWS Asia Pacific (Taipei) Region is sovereign-by-design, and consists of three Availability Zones at launch, giving AWS 117 Availability Zones across 37 AWS Regions globally. AWS has plans for 13 more Availability Zones and four more AWS Regions in Chile, New Zealand, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the AWS European Sovereign Cloud.

“Organizations across Taiwan, and across Asia Pacific, can now leverage the same global infrastructure that millions of businesses worldwide rely on, while benefitting from single-digit millisecond latency, to accelerate innovation, increase operational efficiency, drive business growth, and deliver better experiences for their end users,” commented Prasad Kalyanaraman, vice president of Infrastructure Services at AWS.

Apart from the new region, AWS will also be investing US$5 billion to support the construction, connection, operation, and maintenance of its data centers in Taiwan.

“We appreciate the launch of the AWS Asia Pacific (Taipei) Region, which shows Amazon’s strong commitment to Taiwan,” said Jung-tai Cho, Premier of Taiwan.

“This investment also recognizes Taiwan as a pivotal partner in the global supply chain, and demonstrates the solid foundation of the collaboration between AWS and Taiwan. We are pleased to see AWS deepen its joint efforts with the Taiwan government and the industry to accelerate digital transformation and promote cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and other emerging technologies. We look forward to contributing to fostering a robust digital ecosystem together to advance the technological innovation globally,” added Cho.

As part of its commitment to contribute to the development of digital skills, AWS plans to hire and develop additional local personnel to operate and support the new AWS Region in Taiwan. Since 2017, Amazon has trained more than nine million people across Asia Pacific and Japan on cloud skills, including more than 200,000 people in Taiwan through its education and skills offerings.

Organizations in Taiwan that choose AWS to run their workloads include 104 Corporation, 91APP, Acer, Cathay Financial Holdings, Chunghwa Telecom, CyberLink, Gamania Group, KKCompany, Modernity Financial Technologies (MaiCoin), Trend Micro, TSMC, Yahoo! TW Ecommerce, and more.

Boosting partner capabilities

AWS Partners in Taiwan include CKmates, eCloudvalley Digital Technology Group, Going Cloud, MetaAge Corporation, Netron Ltd., NextLink Technology, and more. eCloudvalley Digital Technology Group is an AWS Premier Tier Services Partner with a team of cloud experts with more than 600 certifications.

According to MP Tsai, chairman of eCloudvalley Group, eCloudvalley Group has always embraced its mission of being a cloud evangelist, driving the adoption of cloud technology across Taiwan’s industries.

“With over a decade of close collaboration with AWS, we are honored to help more and more customers and industries move to the cloud while being part of customers’ digital transformation journey on AWS. We believe that the launch of the AWS Asia Pacific (Taipei) Region will further support Taiwan companies’ digital transformation and innovation in Taiwan with its world-leading cloud technology, while industries with higher local data residency requirements, such as finance and healthcare, will be able to further advance their cloud transformation journey,” added Tsai.

For Shasta Ho, the CEO of Nextlink Technology, the investment of AWS in local infrastructure will help drive the digital transformation of Taiwan companies, boosting the development of various industries spanning from traditional industries to emerging digital sectors.

Nextlink is an AWS Premier Consulting Partner, certified Managed Service Provider (MSP) and has AWS Level 1 Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) and Government Consulting Competency.

“We look forward to continuing working with AWS to help enterprises across industries deeply utilize the new AWS Asia Pacific (Taipei) Region. This local advantage will address customer needs in data localization, low latency, compliance, and high performance computing workloads. We also look forward to using AWS world-leading cloud technologies to power customers’ digital transformation journeys while contributing to the diversification of Taiwan’s economy,” said Ho.

Meanwhile, George Chen, SAP global vice president and managing director for Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau believes the investment provides Taiwan enterprises with greater choice, lower service latency, and enhanced operational flexibility.

A strategic partner of AWS for more than a decade, SAP has thousands of enterprise customers worldwide running their SAP workloads on AWS.

“As a long-term strategic partner, SAP is committed to accelerating cloud transformation for these businesses. Through RISE with SAP, we can help customers seamlessly migrate to the cloud, enjoying greater flexibility, scalability, and reduced operational costs. By combining SAP’s enterprise solutions with the robust cloud platform of AWS, we’ll jointly empower Taiwan’s enterprises to unlock innovative AI applications and run their core businesses securely and reliably locally, driving Taiwan enterprise cloud transformation together,” said Chen.