Online retailer extraordinaire Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) announced a new plan to bulk up its Amazon Web Services (AWS) offering with a huge new investment. Amazon plans to drop $7.8 billion on upgrading the current AWS data center in Ohio and expects the upgrade to be completed by 2030, and will feature new jobs at the current data center site, as well as a range of other initiatives like new construction, maintenance of current facilities, and new operations. It’s designed to illustrate Amazon’s commitment to maintaining a “long-term partnership” with the state, a partnership that has been in place for nearly a decade, according to Ohio Business Roundtable.
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Further, the deal calls for new data center campuses to be built—final site selections are still a ways out—and stocked with the latest in storage drives, computer servers, networking hardware, and similar infrastructure. The deal is actually the second-largest private sector investment that Ohio has ever seen, and Ohio hopes to use this arrangement as a way to demonstrate that it’s one of the leading states in technological development.
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have just one Hold rating against 37 Buy ratings, making Amazon stock a Strong Buy according to analyst consensus. Further, with an average price target of $139.80 per share, Amazon stock offers investors a modest 8.87% upside potential as well.
