More than 50 countries, 900 facilities: Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN.US) operates AWS data centers on a much larger scale than what is commonly perceived.

The scale of Amazon.com, Inc.'s data center operations is much larger than commonly understood - documents show that it has over 900 facilities in more than 50 countries worldwide. The most famous data center hub for Amazon.com, Inc.'s web services (Amazon Web Services, AWS) is located in Virginia and Oregon, and occupies vast areas. However, these giant campuses operated by the company through ownership or long-term leasing do not cover the full range of its business. Documents show that the cloud business also stores server racks in hundreds of so-called colocation facilities; as of last year, these leased spaces provided Amazon.com, Inc. with about one-fifth of its disposable computing capability. Within the industry, colocation data centers are commonly referred to as "colos," and these data centers are generally divided into separate areas according to the needs of different clients. The deployment scale of AWS in these colocation facilities varies significantly: from placing only a few racks in a single room to occupying entire or most of the giant buildings in locations like Frankfurt and Tokyo. For security reasons, and to prevent operational details from being obtained by competitors, AWS has always kept the specific locations of its data centers strictly confidential. The timing of the disclosure of these documents is quite delicate - as investors are eager to determine whether AWS has sufficient computing power to meet the explosive growth in demand in the field of artificial intelligence. These documents not only unveil the mysterious veil of Amazon.com, Inc.'s cloud business operations, but also show that AWS is one of the largest tenants of hosting space globally, highlighting its strong ability to flexibly provide diverse services to customers worldwide. "Everyone is talking about these large data centers, but there are also these invisible small cloud resources," said Nick Benedict, Chief Technology Strategist at New Relic, which helps companies manage their technical infrastructure. "Cloud service providers don't like to tell you where they are." As of early 2024, AWS's operations rely heavily on more than 440 colocation data centers. In addition, the company also operates in over 220 rented "edge" sites. These "edge" sites are located within third-party-operated telecommunications Hub Group, Inc. Class A, situated near major metropolitan areas, connecting Amazon.com, Inc.'s network. The company chooses to layout in these locations in order to allow customers to quickly route data from their own servers or other cloud providers efficiently to Amazon.com, Inc.'s infrastructure. AWS spokesperson Aisha Johnson said that Amazon.com, Inc. strikes a balance between ownership and flexibility in data centers based on a constantly growing demand for AWS services. "While we do own and operate the vast majority of our data centers, when third-party options can provide additional capacity or geographical coverage, we also strategically leverage them," she said in an email statement. "This long-term planning approach allows us to make precise decisions to meet the constantly changing needs of customers." AWS is the world's largest seller of leased computing power, but its leading position is being challenged by competitors such as Microsoft Corporation (MSFT.US) and Alphabet's Alphabet Inc. Class C (GOOGL.US) - with the launch of AI services, the sales of these competitors have also significantly increased. However, Amazon.com, Inc.'s cloud business generated $33 billion in revenue in the third quarter, still its most profitable segment, with an operating profit of $11.4 billion for the period. Last month, a failure of AWS made many people realize its influence: at that time, a key database service malfunctioned, causing a global outage of numerous websites, and the company did not fully restore service until about 15 hours later. Amazon.com, Inc. occasionally inadvertently reveals clues about the scale of its server farms. At the end of 2023, then-CEO of AWS Adam Selipsky revealed that Amazon.com, Inc. has more than three times the number of data centers as its strongest competitor. At that time, Microsoft Corporation claimed to have 300 data centers, making it easy to infer that the competitor referred to by Adam Selipsky was Microsoft Corporation. Statistics from data center tracking firm Baxtel show that Amazon.com, Inc.'s data center layout covers 49 markets, with a total of 449 facilities; while another authoritative organization, DC Byte, indicates that AWS has 364 facilities in 33 countries. Researchers say that since the agreements between AWS and landlords are usually kept confidential, it is almost impossible to fully track all layouts that cover hosting services. Documents show that, overall, Amazon.com, Inc. collaborates with at least 180 different entities in hosting arrangements, from hosting operators like Equinix, to Japanese telecommunications giant NTT, to Markley operating data centers in Boston. When AWS customers like Netflix (NFLX.US) and Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (GS.US) lease computing power, they can do so from any of the 38 regions global regions. Each region is supported by at least three data centers, and Amazon.com, Inc. further divides the network into so-called "availability zones." Industry analysts point out that Amazon.com, Inc. tends to prefer operating its own facilities or through long-term leasing, especially in its most important market - the United States. After 20 years of operation, the company believes it is more efficient than partners. AWS owns about 24 million square feet of building space, with its leased area roughly equivalent, as shown in the annual report. However, Amazon.com, Inc. also utilizes third-party space, especially when entering new markets or needing to quickly respond to changes in demand. In recent years, the company has been striving to keep pace with the growth in service usage, supporting the migration of software to Amazon.com, Inc. servers and meeting new demands for training and running AI services. In terms of electricity usage (a measure of the intensity of computing use within facilities), some of AWS's largest colocation data centers are located in major cities or their surrounding areas, including facilities in cities like Frankfurt, Montreal, Mumbai, Seoul, Singapore, and Tokyo. Environmental groups and consumer advocacy groups warn that the rapid expansion of data centers by Amazon.com, Inc. and its largest competitors is putting pressure on the power grid and prolonging the lifespan of fossil fuel power plants. In recent years, Amazon.com, Inc. has been the largest corporate supporter of renewable energy projects, as part of its goal to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2040; at the same time, its super-sized projects in states like Indiana and Mississippi are also helping to drive the construction of new natural gas power plants. Johnson said that it is not just data centers, but other industries are also driving energy demand, with the company investing billions of dollars in renewable energy and zero-carbon energy projects such as nuclear energy. "These investments are aimed at adding new clean energy to the grid, gradually reducing reliance on fossil fuels while meeting the continuously growing demand."