US tech giant Amazon is to invest £8 billion ($10.5 billion) in Britain over the next five years, creating thousands of jobs via its web services arm, the company and UK government announced Wednesday.
The announcement is a welcome boon for Britain's recently elected Labour government, which has put firing economic growth at the heart of its pledge to "rebuild" the country.
The investment—to build, operate and maintain data centers in the UK—could contribute £14 billion to the country's gross domestic product (GDP) and "support" more than 14,000 jobs annually across the supply chain, Amazon said.
It is the firm's latest announcement of a large investment in a European country by its Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing division, and comes amid debate within the European Union about "cloud" computing services.
"This £8 billion investment marks the start of the economic revival and shows Britain is a place to do business," UK finance minister Rachel Reeves said in a statement.
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