Amazon’s massive investments in India and Southeast Asia are building the infrastructure, talent and ecosystems that could let it dominate the region’s AI transition.
Traffic moves past the Amazon India headquarters in Bengaluru on December 29, 2025.AFP/YONHAP
Ko Young-kyung
The author is a research professor at Yonsei University’s Digital Trade Research Center.
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Amazon's expansion across Asia has become increasingly aggressive. Since entering India in 2010, the company has invested a cumulative $88 billion, making it the country's largest foreign investor as of the first half of 2026. Beginning with Singapore, Amazon has also established data center hubs in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.
And the expansion isn't slowing. Amazon has pledged to invest an additional $48 billion in India and more than $33 billion across Southeast Asia by 2039. In Vietnam, the company has gone beyond cloud services, outlining plans that include low Earth orbit satellite internet and a manufacturing hub for digital devices.
What Amazon is pursuing is not simply more data centers but leadership in the AI transition. Its objective is to bring the digital transformation of India's 1.4 billion people and Southeast Asia's 680 million consumers into the ecosystem of Amazon Web Services (AWS), then build AI and e-commerce platforms on top of that foundation.
Google and Microsoft are pursuing the same opportunity, but Amazon's cumulative investment far exceeds theirs. Unlike many competitors, it is building data centers alongside extensive e-commerce logistics networks, creating an integrated digital infrastructure rather than isolated facilities.
The investment is also flowing into local economies. Construction companies are among the first beneficiaries. Malaysia's Sunway Construction reported a 56 percent increase in first-quarter net profit this year after securing data center projects. In India, Larsen & Toubro has participated in developing sites for Amazon's Mumbai facilities.
Demand for electricity transmission infrastructure and power equipment is also surging. India continues to face severe transmission bottlenecks. During the first quarter alone, about 300 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of renewable electricity could not be delivered because of inadequate grid capacity. That helps explain why Korean companies such as Hyosung Heavy Industries, LS Electric and Taihan Cable & Solution have continued to win infrastructure contracts throughout the region.
Another reason governments welcome Amazon is its investment in developing local talent. Across Southeast Asia, the company says it has provided cloud computing and AI training to 2.7 million people. The strategy addresses youth unemployment and shortages of skilled workers while simultaneously tying emerging regional AI ecosystems more closely to AWS.
Yet the more difficult question comes afterward.
Data centers themselves generate relatively limited employment once construction is complete, while much of the advanced equipment is imported. As a result, their broader industrial spillover effects are often modest. Expanding power grids also requires enormous financial resources and years of construction.
Countries may end up supplying land, electricity and infrastructure while allowing technological leadership in AI to become concentrated in the companies that establish themselves first.
Paradoxically, this is also Amazon's greatest competitive advantage.
Once a company secures land, power supplies, data centers, logistics networks and skilled workers, industries and digital services naturally gravitate toward that ecosystem. The strategy is not simply to build infrastructure but to occupy the commanding position in a country's AI transition before rivals can do so. Infrastructure becomes the foundation upon which future digital industries are organized.
Korea has already benefited from this transformation. In June, the country's monthly exports exceeded $100 billion for the first time, driven in part by expanding global demand for AI infrastructure. Korean firms have become key suppliers of memory chips and power equipment that support the worldwide buildout of AI facilities.
Even so, Korea's strategy toward the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and India remains largely centered on the short-term objective of increasing exports. That perspective is becoming insufficient as competition shifts beyond manufactured goods.
The next stage of competition will not be determined by who exports more products. It will depend on who shapes each country's AI transition and becomes an indispensable long-term partner in that process.
Rather than limiting itself to selling hardware, Korea should seek to help design the AI transformation of emerging economies. Those that participate in building the rules, infrastructure and ecosystems of AI will ultimately enjoy far greater influence than those that simply supply the components.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
