Amazon to pour £8B into UK datacenters through to 2028 Those kindly philanthropists at Amazon Web Services (AWS) plan to invest £8 billion ($10.4 billion) on datacenters in Britain between now and 2028, a move welcomed by the UK's finance minister who tried to take credit and spin it as part of the country's economic revival. The cloud giant said the £8 billion investment in …
Lets face it, Britain isn't a natural choice for new hyperscale bit barns: Sluggish planning, hostile locals, well organised anti-progress NGOs, overloaded infrastructure, expensive energy, very expensive land, expensive construction services. But excellent international connectivity.
Still not seeing why they'd choose a UK location over Ireland (Apple tax spat notwithstanding) or an EU location where there's undoubtedly more subsidies on offer than the UK gov can afford.
I can cynically think of a few reasons..
as the article mentioned - "Now how about looking at the corporation tax bill..." - the UK loves to let big companies not pay tax, which can be an incentive.
UK, being officially outside the EU can potentially turn a blind eye to things that would not be allowed / would raise a lot of awkward questions under EU rules: Amazon have / had cosy relationships with many MPs (of various parties) and high ranking civil servants, which is nice..
"more subsidies on offer than the UK gov can afford."
The UK always seems to find cash to splash for the right people.
Last Tory govt happy to fling billions at dodgy PPE companies owned by their mates.
And, for balance, current "Labour" government promised billions a year to Zelensky / Ukraine, but has proven distinctly non generous with regard to UK pensioners winter heating allowance.
"but has proven distinctly non generous with regard to UK pensioners winter heating allowance."
I'm sick of thie parroting if this My retired parents have far more disposable income than I do and get the allowance (same goes for my aunt).
They get the allowance, but I don't...and I'm not even that bad off.
Why should a retired person with 1/2 million sat in the bank and their mortgage paid of get the allowance, yet a young couple, with 2 kids both on minimum wage, renting some crap hole because its all they can afford get absolutely nothing?
I''ll also.chuck in child allowance into this as well.
As in on a rant, if a government wants to raise money, get rid of fixed rate fines, as they impact the poorest first. Many other countries do it Suddenly that £60 speeding fine by Lord Privileged becomes a £6000 fine. Sheikh Ikillrepoters £100,000
The state pension is going up by enough to cover the loss for this year though and there are opportunities for more people to get pension credit which will enable them to still claim winter fuel allowance.
I'll agree it's an odd policy announced at an odd time but it's not as bad as some elements are spinning it to be.
They chose both.
Earlier this year AWS announced a €7.8B investment into Germany for a European Sovereign Cloud. Only EU residents may touch it.
https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/17/aws_sovereign_cloud_germany/
An EU GovCloud is an obvious strategic move, and Germany is the obvious place to put it.
Is the new UK investment going to be a sort of UK GovCloud? Or will it be open to all, another commercial region, eu-west-4?
To make money of course. There's loads of AI workloads to host for people and I'm sure they can offer some of them up as additional EU regions (since we still comply with GDPR regulations currently and will likely continue to do so) rather than placing them actually in the EU where the tax burden may be higher.
As with other tax weasels ‘we pay all legal taxes due’.
That’s the problem at a global scale. Profits should be taxed at source, and huge financial amounts not be allowed to float around the world based on a pretty dubious licensing, royalty, franchise and IP basis deductions back to Head Office in a tax haven.
If you look at nVidia's forecasts, and the new GPU production facilities being built by TSMC it all points in one direction: our energy efficiency savings being cancelled out by endless GPU barns so that the Powerpoint jockeys can bore on about how Aye Eye is, like, shifting the paradigm of everything.
We should follow Ireland's example and start turning applications for these latter-day gas guzzlers. IMHO.
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