New AWS Local Zones launched in Africa, Latam

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has expanded its Local Zones offering to three new regions – Lagos, Nigeria; Lima, Peru; and Querétaro, Mexico. The company launched Local Zones in 2019 as edge locations for hosting applications that require low latency. These zones offer services such as compute, storage, and databases to users close to population centers, where Amazon doesn’t have an existing data center presence.

The company announced its plans to launch Local Zones in 32 cities across 26 markets internationally in late 2021, and since then has launched a total of 15 international zones in 14 markets outside the US, including Delhi, India; Taipei, Taiwan; Hamburg, Germany; Warsaw, Poland; and Kolkata, India.

AWS operates around 29 Wavelength Zones that embed compute and storage services at the edge of communications service providers’ 5G networks, and also runs an EdgeFront content delivery network with over 310 Points of Presence in 90 cities across 47 countries. It also offers AWS Outposts, which are racks that can be shipped and installed in data centers and on-premises locations.

AWS has not disclosed information about the infrastructure used for its Local Zones, despite multiple requests from DCD. The company has only stated its plans for “hundreds” of Edge locations in the future.