Dive Brief:

• Amazon Web Services is opening a new AWS Region in Stockholm, Sweden in 2018, the company announced Tuesday. 

• The new region will give AWS partners and customers in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden new places to store their data close to home while reducing latency.

• This will be the fifth AWS Region in Europe. Also has cloud regions located in Ireland, London, Frankfurt and an additional Region expected to launch in France soon.

Dive Insight:

AWS is everywhere. The expansion to yet another region shows how global the company's cloud footprint has become. AWS’ infrastructure now comprises 42 "availability zones" across 16 geographic regions worldwide, with another three in France, China and Sweden coming online this year and next year.

AWS is particularly interested in ensuring it is well-covered in Europe ahead of General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) set to go into effect next year. GDPR creates a strict new legal framework for how companies can use individuals’ personal information and prevents organizations from storing data outside the country of origin in many cases.

Sweden is an important area to expand as it is ranked as one of the best countries for business as well as the most innovative country in EU. And let's not forget it ranks as one of the top 20 best countries to live in the world. 

AWS is pouring money into data centers as it looks to maintain its cloud success momentum. AWS remains dominant in the cloud, posting fourth quarter revenue of $3.53 billion last year, up 47% year-over-year.