Internet giant Amazon’s cloud computing arm, Amazon Web Services, said today that it plans to spend £8 billion in the UK over the next five years to build, operate and maintain data centres.

The company expects the investment project to contribute £14 billion to the country’s gross domestic product by the end of 2028 and to support more than 14,000 jobs at British businesses.

The project represents a step-up in the pace of Amazon’s investment in Britain. Since 2022 AWS has invested £3 billion in facilities in London and Manchester.

“Our team that builds our data centres globally take into account multiple levers that they have to look at before they can decide where to put data centres – from power to water to the local environment,” Tanuja Randery, a managing director at AWS, told Reuters.

She singled out use of artificial intelligence as among the factors driving demand for cloud services.

AWS has been investing heavily across Europe, announcing a €15.7 billion investment in Spain earlier this year and another €7.8 billion in Germany.

Analysts and executives say many big corporate customers have started spending again on cloud computing after pausing last year, as interest in artificial intelligence drives a rebound of growth in the $270 billion cloud infrastructure market.

The investment was welcomed by British finance minister Rachel Reeves, who has been courting foreign investors ahead of an investment summit on October 14.