Amazon Web Services opens its Chile region: investment, customers and what changes

Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched its cloud region in Chile on Wednesday, November 11, the "AWS South America (Chile) Region", with three availability zones in the Santiago Metropolitan Region, according to Emol. The region is already running workloads for a group of customers, including BancoEstado, BTG Pactual, Cencosud, Consorcio, Itaú and Ripley, and will open to everyone else in the coming weeks. It is AWS's third region in Latin America, after São Paulo and Mexico.

The region is part of an investment of more than US$4 billion over 15 years that Amazon announced in May 2025. The company estimates it will add more than US$7.5 billion to Chile's GDP and support an average of 4,100 full-time jobs a year, direct and indirect; both figures are the company's own estimates. This is what is known about the AWS region in Chile and what changes for companies.

What the AWS region in Chile is and where it is

A cloud region is a group of data centers in one territory from which a provider offers its services. AWS's Chile region has three availability zones, each with at least one data center and physically separated from one another, so a failure in one does not take down the others. According to Emol, all three are in the Santiago Metropolitan Region; Amazon has not disclosed the exact municipalities. Until now, Chilean companies using AWS processed their data mostly in São Paulo or the United States.

According to TeleSemana, the data centers mainly use air cooling, with no continuous use of water for cooling during operation; Amazon's May 2025 announcement estimated the system would use water about 4% of the year. As water compensation, AWS has funded since August 2024 a project with the company Kilimo to convert about 67 hectares in the Maipo basin from flood to drip irrigation, with estimated savings of 200 million liters a year.

What changes for companies with the AWS region in Chile

The main change is that data can stay in the country. "They needed to keep their data in the country," Paula Bellizia, AWS vice president for Latin America, told Emol about the customers. That matters to banks, insurers, public agencies and health companies, which must meet data protection rules. Proximity also reduces latency, the response time of applications, which is key in payments, e-commerce and gaming.

The region started with compute, storage, networking and databases, and will add during its first year Amazon Bedrock, for using generative AI models, and Amazon SageMaker, for building and training custom models. According to TeleSemana, AWS says the region can also serve users in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia and Peru with lower latency, although that depends on each country's connectivity.

AWS in Latin America: Chile is its third region

AWS opened its first Latin American region in São Paulo in 2011 and the second in Mexico in 2025, according to Emol. The Chile region completes a triangle covering Brazil, Spanish-speaking North America and the Southern Cone. According to TeleSemana, the company operates 39 regions worldwide.

The race for data centers in Chile

AWS is not alone. Microsoft launched its Azure region in Santiago in June 2025, according to Emol, and Google Cloud has operated a region in Santiago since 2021. According to TeleSemana, AWS estimates there are US$2.5 billion in data center projects planned in the country, a figure for the whole sector rather than additional Amazon investment. At the ceremony, President José Antonio Kast said "it is the day Chile enters the big leagues."

The government also created a Permanent Data Center Board to speed up permits and attract investment, with weekly technical sessions from November 16, according to Redimin. International connectivity is part of the bet: the country is studying a submarine cable to Antarctica, and Chile already leads the region in secure internet servers per capita.

AWS Entrena Chile: the training Amazon promises

Along with the region, AWS committed to training 300,000 people for free in artificial intelligence and cloud computing through 2028, through the AWS Entrena Chile program. According to TeleSemana, the company has already trained more than 200,000 people in the country since 2017. "Infrastructure alone is not enough," Rafael Mattje, AWS's interim country manager in Chile, told Emol. Chile now exports more than US$700 million a year in ICT services, a fraction of what Brazil or Mexico sell.

Frequently asked questions

It launched on November 11, 2026 with a group of customers; general availability will follow in the next few weeks.

More than US$4 billion over 15 years, according to its May 2025 announcement.

In the Santiago Metropolitan Region, spread across three availability zones. Amazon has not disclosed the municipalities.

BancoEstado, BTG Pactual, Cencosud, Consorcio, Itaú and Ripley, according to Emol.