Amazon will plough ahead with UK data centres plan despite Brexit
Amazon has said it remains committed to the UK and will continue with plans to build new data centres in the country after the Brexit vote.
Speaking at its annual summit in London, Amazon Web Services (AWS) UK boss Gavin Jackson reassured thousands of attendees, including executives from British clients, that the country’s decision to leave the European Union will not disrupt its plans.
Amazon announced late last year that it would open data centres in the UK to support its AWS cloud services, its third region in Europe after Frankfurt and Dublin. It will still aim to have them up and running by the end of 2016 or early 2017, as planned.
The plans for data centres in the UK have been widely welcomed for giving British business the option of holding data onshore in the wake of the Safe Harbour ruling last year, which raised concerns over cross border data transfer.
Amazon chief technology officer Werner Vogels said at the time: “This region will provide even lower latency and strong data sovereignty to local users.” AWS users in the UK include the BBC and Channel 4 and startups such as Shazam and SwiftKey.
It follows Amazon’s announcement that its retail business will add 1,000 new jobs in the UK by the end of the year.