AWS said the five-year datacentre investment plan would support around 14,000 jobs per year at local businesses, including those across the supply chain in construction, facility maintenance, engineering and telecommunications, as well as well as other jobs within the broader local economy.

The location of the new datacentres has not been disclosed but will be spread around the country supplementing existing capacity in the London area.

AWS vice president and managing director for Europe Tanuja Randery said: “The next few years could be among the most pivotal for the UK’s digital and economic future, as organisations of all sizes across the country increasingly embrace technologies like cloud computing and AI to help them accelerate innovation, increase productivity, and compete on the global stage.

“AWS is proud to announce our plans to invest £8bn in digital and AI infrastructure over the next five years to help meet the growing needs of our customers and partners, and support the transformation of the UK’s digital economy.”

The latest plans promise a major datacentre building boom with rival tech giants Google and Microsoft also planning to expand their icloud capacity in the UK.

Google’s plan for campus in Hertfordshire

Contractor TSL is building a new £790m datacentre campus for Google at a 33-acre site in Waltham Cross, Hertfordshire.

TSL is using steel frame contractor J & D Pierce and M&E specialist Dornan Engineering on the job.

In August, Microsoft bought a 48-acre site at the former Skelton Grange power station site near Leeds to build another hyperscale datacentre as it also prepares to ramp up investment in the UK.

Over the next three years, Microsoft said it would spend £2.5bn on expanding its next-generation AI datacenter infrastructure, bringing more than 20,000 of the most advanced graphics processing units (GPUs) to the UK by 2026.

This represents the single largest investment in its 40-year history in the UK. Its other schemes are planned for sites in London,  Newport and Eggborough.