AWS plans AI and supercomputing expansion for US government

The US government is to gain access to new AI and high-performance computing tools as AWS prepares a major expansion of its secure cloud systems. The company plans to invest up to $50 billion starting in 2026 to build out AI and supercomputing capacity in its Top Secret, Secret, and GovCloud regions.

The buildout will add nearly 1.3 gigawatts of power for advanced compute workloads, supported by new data centres that use updated chips and networking hardware. AWS says the investment will give federal agencies a wider set of AI tools and speed up the work they already do with large datasets. Agencies will also be able to use hardware from AWS and Nvidia to train models, run predictions, and support specialised research.

“Our investment in purpose-built government AI and cloud infrastructure will fundamentally transform how federal agencies use supercomputing,” AWS CEO Matt Garman said. “We’re giving agencies expanded access to advanced AI capabilities that will enable them to accelerate important missions from cybersecurity to drug discovery.”

“The investment removes the technology barriers that have held government back and further positions America to lead in the AI era,” he added.

Amazon has been expanding its cloud infrastructure as demand for AI systems grows. CEO Andy Jassy noted in last quarter’s earnings call that Amazon added 3.8 gigawatts of data-centre capacity in the past year, which the company says outpaced its competitors.

Under the new plan, federal customers will gain access to AWS’s full range of AI services. These include Amazon SageMaker for model development, Amazon Bedrock for model and agent deployment, Anthropic Claude, Amazon Nova, AWS Trainium chips, and Nvidia’s AI hardware.

AWS says the added capacity should help agencies speed up research and decision-making. For example, teams studying global security issues could process decades of data in real time and spot patterns that once took months to review. Defence and intelligence groups could also automate parts of their analysis by running satellite images, sensor data, and historical records through large-scale computing systems.

The company says the investment aligns with the White House’s AI Action Plan and other federal efforts to build secure domestic AI infrastructure. AWS now supports more than 11,000 government customers since launching GovCloud in 2011.

“While Amazon still leads the cloud market, it has lost ground on AI-related cloud growth as Google and Oracle speed up, making large-scale infrastructure commitments necessary strategies,” Emarketer analyst Jacob Bourne said.

The wider tech sector has also been pouring money into AI infrastructure. Companies like OpenAI, Alphabet, and Microsoft continue to spend heavily on the compute power needed to train and run large models. One gigawatt of power – the scale AWS is adding – is roughly equal to the average electricity use of about 750,000 US homes.

AWS’ government-focused cloud has grown through several milestones over the past decade. It introduced GovCloud (US-West) in 2011 to meet federal security rules, launched the first air-gapped commercial cloud for classified workloads in 2014, and became the first cloud provider cleared to offer unclassified, secret, and top-secret regions in 2017.

Amazon is also planning another large expansion in Indiana. The company expects to invest about $15 billion to build new data centre campuses that support AI and cloud systems, in addition to the $11 billion announced last year in St. Joseph County. The new sites will add 2.4 gigawatts of capacity and bring the same type of advanced infrastructure used in Project Rainier, which Amazon describes as the world’s largest AI supercomputer.

The Indiana project is expected to create more than 1,100 technical jobs in data centre operations, networking, engineering, and security. It will also support thousands of roles in the supply chain, including construction, electrical work, and fibre installation.

(Photo by Jonathan Simcoe)

See also: AWS rolls out new tool to simplify regional cloud planning

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