The AWS Region in Switzerland is open!

Today marks a key milestone for Amazon Web Services in Switzerland. The new AWS infrastructure Region in Switzerland went live this morning at 8AM.

We are proud beyond words.

This has been a key ask of our customers. Being able to listen to our customers and deliver on our promises gives us a great sense of accomplishment. Official Press Release

As of today, Swiss and international customers have the choice to store and process their content from within Swiss borders, maintaining full control and ownership of their data while leveraging the services of the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud provider.

AWS has served Swiss customers from the very early days, growing to more than 10’000 active customers supported from our offices in Zurich, Bern and Geneva. We have the privilege to build on a strong local team who works hand-in-hand with our customers to foster innovation, enable organizational agility, and ensure operational efficiency.

In recent years, we have accelerated our engagement with local communities, contributing to the Swiss digital agenda. For example, by upskilling local developers, students, and the next generation of IT leaders in Switzerland through programs like AWS re/Start, AWS Academy, and AWS Educate. We actively partner with “ICT Berufsbildung”, supporting the association in its efforts to rework the national IT curriculum by developing new cloud modules that have been taught to every Swiss IT apprentice (3,000+ per year) since 2021.

The launch of the AWS Europe (Zurich) Region comes along with a 15-year plan to expand related infrastructure and operations in Switzerland through 2036. AWS estimates that this investment will support an average of over 2,500 full-time jobs annually at external vendors through investment of 5.9 billion Swiss francs with an estimated economic impact of 16.3 billion Swiss francs on the country’s GDP. This estimate does not include the indirect Economic Value created through our partner and customer ecosystem as they transform their operating models towards a “Cloud Powered Digital Economy”. Switzerland Economic Impact Study

As Cloud pioneers working with millions of customers worldwide, we have seen first-hand that Cloud Computing is a catalyst for transformation. Users have access to a broad range of the latest technologies, so they can innovate faster, experiment freely, and scale resources as needed. ?At AWS we are builders. We love working on the most complex and most pressing challenges of today and tomorrow. Our appetite for learning and building solutions serves as innovation accelerator for our customers; from startups to global organizations. From Genomic research in Lifesciences, Metaverse, 5G, Quantum Computing, to connecting people through Low-Earth-Orbit satellites, innovation is our DNA.

And there is no innovation without security. AWS is architected to be the most flexible and secure cloud computing environment available today. Its core infrastructure is built to satisfy data protection and security requirements for the governments, global banks, and other security-sensitive organizations. The AWS Cloud allows companies of all sizes, especially the small and medium businesses to take advantage of more than 300 security, compliance, and governance services and features with AWS, while storing and processing their data in country. Global Infrastructure?

There will be no digital future without sustainability. AWS seeks to grow the use of renewable energy powering AWS data centers and to achieve 100 percent renewable energy usage for its global infrastructure by 2025. We design and build our global infrastructure to be highly efficient thanks to a combination of more energy-efficient servers, higher server utilization, and excellence in sustainable-architecture. As a result, AWS infrastructure is up to five times more energy efficient than the average European enterprise data center. Migrating Swiss enterprise workloads to AWS would result in energy savings of up to 80 percent and reduce annual carbon emissions by up to 1,079 metric tons of CO2 per megawatt. AWS in Switzerland?

Technology is a tool. To create impact, leaders must act. As we face a period of increased uncertainty and ambiguity, delaying decisions is tempting. ?However, ambiguity calls for action. It creates the necessity to test hypotheses and adjust to changing realities. The AWS Cloud powers organizations to start small experiments, learn fast, and scale. This is how we help reduce the costs and risk of experimentation and combine the Swiss high quality Innovation with the Amazonian high frequency innovation.

Agility is the only competitive advantage.

So, for our AWS team in Switzerland, today is #Day1. It always is.

#awsswitzerland #aws #alwaysday1