The e-commerce giant said the new investment will support its efforts to digitize small businesses and strengthen its logistics and operations footprint in India. The company said it aims to enable AI access for up to 15 million small businesses and generate 1 million direct, indirect, induced, and seasonal jobs by 2030.

Citing an Economic Impact Report by Keystone Strategy, Amazon said it has invested nearly $40 billion in India to date. In 2023, Amazon said it would invest $15 billion in the country by 2030 — of that, $12.7 billion was earmarked for its cloud business through Amazon Web Services.

Amazon’s new plan comes just a day after Microsoft said it would invest $17.5 billion in India by 2029. And in October, Google said it would spend $15 billion to build an AI hub and data center infrastructure in the country.

India is an important market for Big Tech, drawn by its huge populace, which features more than a billion internet users and hundreds of millions of smartphone users. The country has also attracted interest from AI firms such as OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity, as a large share of the population comes online for the first time and a growing developer base accelerates the adoption of generative AI applications.

“One of the things that I look for is what’s happening here,” said Russell Grandinetti, senior VP of international stores at Amazon, at the company’s annual small business-focused Smbhav event in New Delhi. “That’s inevitably going to become part of how we run our business around the world.”

Amazon faces strong competition in India from Walmart-backed Flipkart, Meesho, and quick-commerce firms such as Swiggy’s Instamart, Zomato’s Blinkit, and Zepto, which are expanding fast and targeting the same urban consumer base. However, with its immense logistics network and more than 1.7 million sellers, the company does enjoy scale advantages in the market.

“India continues to be Amazon’s one of the largest long-term opportunities,” said Amit Aggarwal, senior VP of emerging markets at Amazon.