AWS is spending $50 billion to build AI infrastructure for the US government

Amazon Web Services is making a major new investment in infrastructure designed to enhance the artificial intelligence capabilities of US government organizations.

AWS announced Monday that it is investing $50 billion to build “high-performance computing infrastructure” for artificial intelligence designed specifically for the U.S. government. This release aims to expand federal government agencies’ access to AWS AI services.

The project will add 1.3 gigawatts of compute and expand the government’s access to AWS products, including Amazon SageMaker AI, form customization, Amazon Bedrock, form publishing, and Anthropic’s Claude chatbot, among others, according to the company.

AWS expects to begin these data center projects in 2026.

“Our investment in purpose-built government AI and cloud infrastructure will fundamentally change how federal agencies leverage supercomputing,” AWS CEO Matt Jarman said in the company’s press release. “We are giving agencies expanded access to advanced AI capabilities that will enable them to accelerate critical missions from cybersecurity to drug discovery. This investment removes technological barriers that have hamstrung government and strengthens America’s leadership position in the AI ​​era.”

AWS is no stranger to working with the US government.

The entity began building cloud infrastructure for the US government in 2011. Three years later, it launched AWS Top Secret-East, the first closed commercial cloud that works with classified workloads. AWS introduced the AWS Secret Zone in 2017, which allowed access to all security classification levels.

Tech giants have increasingly offered their AI services to the US government over the past year.

OpenAI launched a version of ChatGPT designed exclusively for US federal government agencies in January. OpenAI announced a deal in August that gave government agencies enterprise-level access to ChatGPT for just $1 per year.

That same month, Anthropic announced that it would also give the US government access to enterprise levels of its Claude chatbot for $1. Google announced a lower-cost “Google for Government” program, charging 47 cents for the first year, shortly after.