Amazon Web Services plans to invest at least $5 billion in South Korea by 2031 to build new artificial intelligence data centers, according to a Reuters report that cites South Korea’s presidential office.
The investment, which was announced during a meeting between AWS CEO Matt Garman and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, aims to support South Korea’s ambition to become a global AI leader and boost the local AI ecosystem.
“At AWS, we’ve invested and committed to investment of an additional $40 billion across 14 non-U.S. APEC countries and economies between now and 2028,” Garman said. “And, that $40 billion actually drives an additional $45 billion in U.S. GDP and downstream benefit, benefiting all of the APEC economy,” he said at a business event on the sidelines of the summit.
The current investment marks the largest direct foreign investment in South Korea, surpassing AWS’s previous commitment of $4 billion for an AI data center in Ulsan announced earlier in 2025.
Earlier this month, South Korea’s presidential office said OpenAI (OPENAI) planned to set up joint ventures with Samsung (OTCPK:SSNLF) and SK (OTCPK:HXSCF) to build two data centres.