In February 2024, we announced plans to expand Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure in Mexico. Today, I’m excited to announce the general availability of the AWS Mexico (Central) Region with three Availability Zones and API code mx-central-1. This new AWS Region is the first AWS infrastructure Region in Mexico and adds to our growing presence in Latin America.

The AWS Region in Mexico represents a significant commitment to the country’s digital future. AWS is planning to invest more than $5 billion in Mexico over 15 years. This AWS Region will provide customers with advanced and secure cloud technologies, including cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) capabilities with purpose-built processors, while supporting Mexico’s growing digital economy. With this effort, AWS will support an average of more than 7,000 full-time equivalent jobs annually in Mexico, adding more than $10 billion to Mexico’s gross domestic product (GDP). AWS has also launched a $300,000 AWS InCommunities Fund in Queretaro to help local groups, schools, and organizations initiate new community projects.

Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City

The AWS Mexico (Central) Region provides organizations in Mexico with a new option to run their workloads and store data locally. Organizations that need data residency capabilities, enhanced performance with lower latency, or robust security standards can now use infrastructure located in Mexico.

AWS in Mexico
AWS has operated infrastructure in Mexico since 2020. The infrastructure includes seven Amazon CloudFront edge locations, AWS Outposts, and strategic offerings such as AWS Local Zones in Queretaro and AWS Direct Connect. These infrastructure offerings help customers run low-latency applications while maintaining secure connectivity.

Performance and Innovation
The AWS Mexico (Central) Region brings AWS infrastructure and services closer to local customers. With this new Region, AWS provides lower latency for customers in Mexico compared to using other AWS Regions. Customers will also be able to use our innovation in purpose-built processors, notably AWS Graviton, that delivers up to 40% better price performance compared to x86-based Amazon EC2 instances across diverse workloads.

This technological advantage extends to our cutting-edge AI and ML capabilities, including:

• Advanced ML infrastructure with AWS Trainium and AWS Inferentia for scalable generative AI deployment.
• Purpose-built processors optimized for cloud workloads to deliver best price-performance.

Security and Compliance
AWS provides comprehensive security capabilities with support for 143 security standards and compliance certifications, including PCI-DSS, HIPAA/HITECH, FedRAMP, GDPR, FIPS 140-2, and NIST 800-171. All AWS customers own their data, choose where to store it, and decide if/when to move it. This means customers storing content in the AWS Mexico (Central) Region have the assurance that their content will not leave Mexico, unless they chose to move it.

AWS Customers in Mexico
Leading Mexican organizations are already achieving significant results with AWS. Companies such as Aeroméxico, Banco Santander Mexico, Cinépolis, Grupo Salinas, Kavak, Palace Resorts, and Vector Casa de Bolsa are running mission-critical workloads on AWS. Here are key examples:

BBVA, a leading multinational financial services company, is using AWS to accelerate its data-driven transformation. Using Amazon SageMaker and Amazon Bedrock, BBVA is empowering over 1,000 data scientists to build, train, and deploy machine learning models efficiently. This technology enables BBVA to explore advanced technologies and create innovative financial solutions, supporting their goal of becoming a true data and AI-driven digital organization.

Grupo Multimedios, a leading Mexican media group, is pioneering the use of generative AI, by implementing Amazon Bedrock for their media asset manager (MAM), reducing content research time by 88%, decreasing news generation time by 40%, and increasing content production by 70% (250 additional news items daily). As the fastest-growing media group embracing technological leadership, their AI implementation demonstrates a commitment to innovation while streamlining operations.

Bowhead Health, a digital healthcare company, is revolutionizing cancer research by using Amazon Bedrock to accelerate the research pipeline. The company has built a vast, de-identified dataset that’s ready for analysis without traditional recruitment barriers. Bowhead Health also delivers robust, real-world insights to drive faster breakthroughs in oncology drug development.

SkyAlert, an innovative technology company protecting millions in earthquake-prone areas, transformed its alert system by migrating to AWS in 2018. Before AWS, their system required 20 virtual machines and experienced significant delays during critical moments. Using AWS Lambda, AWS Fargate, and Amazon Pinpoint, they can now scale automatically and deliver messages to users quickly. With the opening of the AWS Mexico (Central) Region, SkyAlert anticipates further improvements to their services with local AWS infrastructure. As Santiago Cantú, Co-Founder of SkyAlert, explains, “The opening of the AWS Region in Mexico is an extremely important event for SkyAlert and for the security of those who trust us. Having local AWS infrastructure will improve our ability to deliver critical alerts, which potentially save lives, even faster and more reliably. This perfectly aligns with our mission to provide the most robust and advanced earthquake early warning system available. The new Region will allow us to take even greater advantage of AWS services, ensuring that we continue to be at the forefront of innovation in disaster preparedness.”

Building Skills Together
AWS has made significant investments in upskilling initiatives in Mexico including:

• Training over 500,000 individuals in cloud technology since 2017.
• Collaborating with the the Ministry of Economy to train 138,000 people in digital technology as of 2024.
• Partnering with universities like Universidad Panamericana and Tec de Monterrey to teach digital skills.
• Training programs with Canacintra for 20,000 Small and Medium Businesses (SMB) leaders.

AWS Commitment to Sustainability
Amazon is committed to reaching net-zero carbon across its business by 2040. A recent Accenture study shows that running workloads on AWS is up to 4.1 times more energy-efficient than on-premises environments. When workloads are optimized on AWS, the associated carbon footprint can be lowered by up to 99%. The AWS Mexico (Central) Region incorporates sustainable design practices, using air-cooling technology that eliminates the need for cooling water in operations. With this new Region, customers will also benefit from AWS sustainability efforts across its infrastructure. To learn more about sustainability at AWS, visit the AWS Cloud sustainability page.

Things to know
AWS Community in Mexico – The AWS Community in Mexico is one of the most vibrant in Latin America, with 26+ AWS Community Builders and 15 AWS User Groups. These groups are located in Jalisco, Puebla, Monterrey, Mérida, Mexico City, Mexicali, Cancún, León, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, Ensenada, Saltillo, Tijuana, and Villahermosa, plus a specialized User Group called Embajadoras cloud (Cloud ambassadors) focused on women’s professional development. Together, these groups comprise 9,000+ total members.

AWS Global footprint – With this launch, AWS now spans 114 Availability Zones within 36 geographic Regions.

Available now – The new AWS Mexico (Central) Region is ready to support your business, and you can find a detailed list of the services available in this Region on the AWS Services by Region page.

To start building in mx-central-1, visit the AWS Global Infrastructure page.

Thanks to David Victoria for the AWS Community México 2024 photo.

— Eli