Amazon’s AWS to invest about $18 billion in Canada over the next 14 years

Amazon Web Services, the cloud business of e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, +2.63%, said Wednesday the launch of a new infrastructure region in Western Canada, as part of AWS’s plan to invest more than $17.9 billion in Canada through 2037. The investment is expected to support an average of more than 9,300 full-time jobs a year, AWS said, with the new AWS Canada West (Calgary) Region supporting more than 1,300 jobs. Amazon’s stock fell 0.4% in premarket trading. It slipped 0.2% on Tuesday, after closing Monday at a 20-month high. “With the launch of the AWS Canada West (Calgary) Region, customers and partners across Canada now have additional infrastructure to deploy applications with greater resilience, availability, and lower latency, while enabling more customers to innovate with advanced technologies like artificial intelligence to help fuel economic development across the country,” said Prasad Kalyanaraman, vice president of infrastructure services at AWS. Amazon’s stock has soared 83.1% year to date, putting it on track for the biggest yearly gain since it rocketed 117.8% in 2015, while the S&P 500 SPX, +1.25% has gained 24.2% this year.