Amazon to Invest Over €16bn in Germany in 2027, €4.8bn for AWS Frankfurt

The data-center share is €4.8 billion, which Amazon says is planned to expand the AWS Europe (Frankfurt) Region through 2027. That is roughly 30% of the total, by Voltgrid's arithmetic. Stefan Höchbauer, vice president of AWS global sales for Germany and Europe Central, is quoted tying the plan to cloud and AI services. The Frankfurt Region launched in October 2014, and the AWS European Sovereign Cloud has been generally available in Germany since January 2026.

Amazon says its German data centers use free-air cooling about 95% of the time, and that all planned German data centers will use harvested rainwater when evaporative cooling is needed. It also says it is Germany's largest corporate buyer of carbon-free energy, with enabled projects totalling more than 1.3 GW. That figure covers existing or enabled supply, not the 2027 build-out. Amazon's chief global affairs and legal officer David Zapolsky said the company has invested more than €100 billion in Germany since 2010. Katherina Reiche, Germany's federal minister for economic affairs and energy, called the plan a vote of confidence in Germany as a location and said high-performance data centers underpin the digital economy.

For power and grid planners, the Frankfurt area is already a congested data-center hub, so a multi-billion-euro expansion there will compete for connections and supply. The announcement does not address that.

Much is unconfirmed. Amazon did not state the megawatt or gigawatt capacity of the planned data centers, the number of new buildings or sites, any AI hardware or GPU details, or how the remaining roughly €11 billion divides between logistics, Amazon Leo, Prime Video and other items. It also did not say whether the €16 billion is wholly new or overlaps earlier commitments, or whether government incentives are involved.