Amazon strikes major AI and cloud pact with global tech group to accelerate growth

Amazon.com Inc. and global technology investor Prosus NV today announced a major cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) partnership designed to sharpen Prosus’s competitive edge and accelerate its global expansion.

Under a multi‑year agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS),  the cloud computing arm of Amazon, Prosus will consolidate its existing cloud and AI contracts into a single strategic pact. The Netherlands-based company seeks to optimize its contract management process connected with cloud services and AI, resulting in substantial cost savings.

Regarding the agreement, Igor Cardoso, Head of Prosus Ecosystem, noted that the three-year deal with Amazon Web Services is valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars; however, he declined to disclose the exact amount.

Prosus demonstrates a strong commitment to exploring the AI sector 

Prosus is reorganizing its operations to focus exclusively on European, Indian, and Latin American markets under the leadership of Chief Executive Officer Fabricio Bloisi. To successfully pursue this motive and double their value by 2028, the company’s officials noted that they aim to upgrade their AI capabilities in these areas.

At this particular moment, Cardoso explained that they plan to roll out their large commerce model throughout Latin America. So far, Prosus has already established several operations in the region. These operations include iFood for food delivery and logistics in Brazil, Despegar for travel services, and OLX for online classifieds. Meanwhile, after accomplishing this goal, the Prosus executive outlined plans for expansion into Europe and later into India.

Given the increased adoption of AI among individuals, Cardoso believes that standardizing models will enable them to develop new ones more rapidly and easily across locations, even though the business is prohibited from sharing information between regions.

In the meantime, it is worth noting that Prosus has a team of roughly 1,000 AI professionals who will partner with Amazon’s team to jointly create applications. To further illustrate their commitment to the AI sector, Cardoso alleged that the firm allocates about $100 million annually to AI talent and infrastructure.

“In the last 18 to 24 months, we have created and launched agents across our companies,” he said, adding that, “We are now developing and investing in life assistants to help these businesses.” 

The Prosus-Amazon sparks excitement in the tech Industry 

Prosus has its origins in Naspers, a global consumer internet group that made early strategic investments in the tech sector, most notably a 2001 stake in Tencent Holdings Ltd. The company acquired a 46% stake in Tencent for $32 million and retained a 23% stake in Tencent’s WeChat, now valued at nearly $156 billion.

To sharpen its focus on global consumer internet operations amid intensifying competition, Napers later spun off Prosus. Since then, under CEO Bloisi, reports highlighted that the executive is focused on driving profitability and growth across Prosus’ other business units via acquisitions such as the European food-delivery service Just Eat Takeaway.com, a leading global online food delivery marketplace, for around $4.6 billion, and approximately $1.7 billion for Argentina’s Despegar.

Moreover, under the Prosus-Amazon deal, Cardoso highlighted that Prosus will also leverage its partner’s infrastructure and data centers across various locations to stay competitive in the tech industry.

Under the new AWS agreement, Prosus hopes to leverage Amazon’s infrastructure and data centers across multiple locations, ensuring the company remains competitive.

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