Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) operates a far larger cloud infrastructure than widely assumed, with Amazon Web Services (AWS) running more than 900 facilities in over 50 countries, according to a Bloomberg report on Monday based on internal documents and findings from investigative outlet SourceMaterial.
Although AWS is best known for its sprawling data center campuses in Virginia and Oregon, those well-publicized hubs represent only a fraction of its overall footprint. The company also relies heavily on hundreds of third-party “colocation” sites — or “colos,” as they are known in the industry — where AWS leases space to host additional servers.
These rented colocation facilities provided around 20% of AWS’s total computing capacity last year, the documents show. The scale of AWS’s presence in these sites varies dramatically, from a few server racks in a secure room to occupying most or even all of massive buildings in key markets such as Frankfurt and Tokyo.
Amazon has long refused to publish the exact locations of its individual data centers, citing both security and competitive concerns. The new revelations about the true breadth of AWS’s infrastructure arrive at a time when investors are increasingly focused on whether the company can handle accelerating demand for artificial intelligence workloads.
The documents also suggest that AWS is now one of the world’s largest tenants of colocation space — underscoring the flexibility and reach it has to deliver cloud services to customers worldwide.