Amazon logo is seen in this illustration taken February 16, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

(Reuters) -Amazon.com said on Monday it would invest up to $50 billion to expand AI and supercomputing capabilities for Amazon Web Services U.S. government customers, in one of the largest cloud infrastructure commitments targeted at the public sector.

The project, expected to break ground in 2026, will add nearly 1.3 gigawatts of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing capacity across AWS Top Secret, AWS Secret and AWS GovCloud regions by building data centers equipped with advanced compute and networking technologies.

AWS cloud regions for U.S. government are based on increasing levels of data sensitivity. The cloud unit currently serves more than 11,000 U.S. government agencies.

Tech companies, including OpenAI, Alphabet and Microsoft, are pouring billions of dollars to develop AI infrastructure, boosting demand for computing power required to support the services.

One gigawatt of computing power is roughly enough to power about 750,000 U.S. households on average.

"This investment removes the technology barriers that have held government back," AWS Chief Executive Matt Garman said. Amazon did not disclose the timeline for the spending.

Under the latest initiative, federal agencies will gain access to AWS' comprehensive suite of AI services, including Amazon SageMaker for model training and customization, Amazon Bedrock for deploying models and agents, as well as foundation models such as Amazon Nova and Anthropic Claude.

The federal government seeks to develop tailored AI solutions and drive significant cost savings by leveraging AWS' dedicated and expanded capacity.

The push also comes as the U.S., along with other countries such as China, intensifies efforts to advance AI development and secure leadership in the emerging technology.

The White House did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

(Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shilpi Majumdar)