Amazon to spend £1.8bn on UK infrastructure over next 2 years

Amazon Web Services claims it is to invest upwards of £1.8bn ($2.36bn) over the next two years in building and operating data centers in the UK to meet the ever-growing demand for cloudy tech. The cash burn includes spending on infrastructure, renewable energy, and skills and training, the megacorp said. AWS opened its London …

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh?

Er, 200 million countries? (penultimate paragraph) Can I assume that as it is Friday, and 'spoons has been open for a while before this article was published, the author is already shitfaced?

[MrMerrymaker]

Re: Eh?

Perhaps Amazon wish to conquer other worlds yet unseen by us for their market dominance.

It wouldn't surprise me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Eh?

I think they've already found out how many countries Russia is going to be split into in 3 years' time.

[diodesign]

Typo

We probably meant the ~200 countries on Earth, not 200 million. It's fixed. Don't forget to email [e-mail] if you spot anything weird in stories so we can get right on it.

C.

[Tom 7]

Re: Typo

forget to email [e-mail] - corrections BTL can be the seed corn for a much needed wry smile at the moment!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yay!

I'm sure the UK government are looking forward to all that extra tax income </sarc>

[MatthewSt]

Re: Yay!

Especially when taking the capex super deduction into consideration... https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/new-temporary-tax-reliefs-on-qualifying-capital-asset-investments-from-1-april-2021/new-temporary-tax-reliefs-on-qualifying-capital-asset-investments-from-1-april-2021

[John Brown (no body)]

The people of Didcot may disagree!

"at the site of the former Didcot, a power station"

Actually, it's a town which used to have a power station.

Perhaps the author meant "at the site of the former Didcot power station"

[katrinab]

Re: The people of Didcot may disagree!

It used to have two power stations. It still has Didcot B and a small part of Didcot A.

[Tom 7]

Be intersting to see how they power it

A hospital in Wales is just commissioning its solar farm and has been getting power since Nov and has already saved £120k in electricity. It expected to save £500k a year for a £5.7M project! So it looks like it will pay back in 10 years and give them free power for another 15 years or so. And perovskite is coming soon!

[hoola]

Re: Be intersting to see how they power it

Whilst this is all positive solar has one fundamental problem, it only works during the day.......

The gap still needs to be filled either from wind (intermittent) or traditional sources.

Having said that what really irks me is that advert on the TV where Amazon honk on about Europe's largest solar farm. It is solar panels installed in fields. Amazon (along with all the other big warehouse/distribution centres) should be forced to install solar on the roof of their sites.

It is just insane that we cover hundreds of acres in steel and concrete then cover a different load of hundreds of acres in solar panels.

They simply will not do this unless forced by regulation because it costs more. The roof needs to be stronger to support the panels.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well that explains all the road closures and dark fibre being laid in ducts in the roads of south oxfordshire...........

[Anonymous Coward]

Elements of the supply chain working for us on green backup power supplies have openly admitted to us that much of the motivation for the investment in the design of such systems is being motivated by Data Centre needs.

Serial production of fuel cell / hydrogen and green electrolysers on a scale worthy of the name coming up in next couple of years.

CBA of installing these over traditional methods does not stack up right now; but green credentials do. Reductions in scope of red diesel tax breaks also favours developing alternatives.

To say nothing of our import dependencies on Diesel.