Microsoft to launch Mexico cloud region

Plans announced as part of $1.1bn investment into the country

Microsoft has announced a five-year plan to invest $1.1bn into Mexico and establish a cloud region in the country.

The Mexico cloud region will take Microsoft’s global tally to 57, which are located in 22 countries. A cloud region consists of two or more data centres, but Microsoft has not revealed how many facilities it plans to build or where they will be located.

The cloud region will be built as part of the company’s “Innovate for Mexico” plan, an initiative seeking to accelerate the country’s digital transformation by making technology more accessible to Mexico public entities, organizations and citizens.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador unveiled the news at a press conference in Mexico City and was joined by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella via video feed.

Aside from making Microsoft Azure, Office 365, Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform widely available, Microsoft is also launching a “robust” education and skilling program, which will see the creation of three laboratories and a virtual classroom to create an education platform for digital skills.

Microsoft also announced funding for a project to monitor vulnerable species of shark, as part of a previous pledge to identify ways in which AI can solve the country’s social challenges. The Mako Shark initiative, led by NGO Mexico Azul and La Salle University in Cabo San Lucas, will receive a grant from Microsoft to create open-source software that can identify individual sharks using AI and machine learning.

“Few places in the world today are as dynamic and diverse as Mexico,” the company wrote in a blog post. “In this landscape, we see enormous opportunity for the cloud to accelerate innovation, support people across the country working to transform their businesses, explore new entrepreneurship opportunities and help solve some of the country’s most difficult challenges.”

According to Microsoft’s own figures, it has contributed to 156,000 jobs in the information technology sector in conjunction with 4,000 Mexican business partners. The company claims fifteen million online training courses have been completed to date in its network of training centres throughout the country.

Earlier this month, cloud market leaders Amazon announced plans to invest $1.6 billion constructing two data centres in India to form an AWS region in the state of Telangana.

Oracle has also been busy announcing new cloud regions this year. In February, the company opened data centres in five countries and is on track to have 36 cloud regions by the end of the year.