Swisstopo, Switzerland's federal mapping agency, adopted AWS in 2010 to empower its digital geographic information system and services for over 80,000 daily users across the country. “Thanks to automatic provisioning, we were able to scale horizontally on demand and achieved a decrease in the setup time for hardware from 10 weeks to under one hour,” said Hanspeter Christ, head of GeoIT at Swisstopo. “The new AWS Region will open up new possibilities to provide users with even faster access to our services and best-in-class experiences with the additional choice to host data in Switzerland.”

Founded in 2014, deep-tech startup Verity provides an automated inventory management system powered by self-flying drones, which sets a new standard for big-box retailers, third-party logistics providers, and manufacturers. “Our system uses drones to collect and process accurate inventory data at the edge—up to 10 gigabytes per flight per drone—and uses AWS to transfer data to the cloud,” said Raffaello D'Andrea, founder of Verity. “With the ability to identify discrepancies between data stored in a customer’s warehouse management system and where inventory actually is or isn’t in the warehouse, customers gain valuable insights that enable greater operational efficiencies and help cut labor and equipment costs, eliminate errors and disruptions, and reduce waste and CO2 emissions. AWS's powerful APIs and managed services have helped us take our business to the next level and scale fast. Using AWS’s technology services, Verity is making the zero-error warehouse a reality for our clients.”

Switzerland-based AWS Partners also welcome the AWS Europe (Zurich) Region

The AWS Partner Network (APN) includes tens of thousands of independent software vendors (ISVs) and systems integrators (SIs) around the world. AWS Partners build innovative solutions and services on AWS, and the APN helps by providing business, technical, marketing, and go-to-market support to customers. AWS SIs, consulting partners, and ISVs help enterprise and public sector customers migrate to AWS, deploy mission-critical applications, and provide a full range of monitoring, automation, and management services for customers' cloud environments. Examples of Switzerland-based AWS Partners include 1plusX (a TripleLift Company), Amanox Solutions, amazee.io, Appway, Avaloq, Beekeeper, BSI, copebit, crealogix, dbi services, ELCA Cloud Services SA, Finnova, Ingram Micro, Nexthink, Secutix, SmartWave, SoftwareONE, Swisscom, TD SYNNEX, Trivadis, WebGate Consulting, and Zühlke Technology Group. For the full list of AWS Partners, visit aws.amazon.com/partners.

ELCA Cloud Services SA, known as ELCA, focuses on cloud and workplace managed services and is part of the ELCA Group, one of the largest independent Swiss full-service IT providers. “The opening of the new AWS Region is a pivotal moment in the acceleration of transformation and innovation for Swiss companies, particularly those in highly regulated industries such as financial services, health care, and government. It is key for ELCA to be able to benefit from AWS’s cloud portfolio in Switzerland to help us best serve our customers’ needs,” said Maxime Claux, vice president at ELCA. “The new AWS Region will unleash the full potential of the cloud for Swiss public sector organizations, midsize businesses, and enterprises. It will enable them to securely deploy applications, increase efficiencies, improve performance, and meet data residency requirements. AWS’s continued investment will also help ELCA to expand our business and train local cloud professionals to further support Switzerland’s digital transformation efforts.”

SoftwareONE is a global leader in software and cloud portfolio management with more than 9,000 technology experts in more than 90 countries providing end-to-end software and cloud technology solutions. “Like AWS, SoftwareONE has been a pioneer in shaping the way customers deploy technology and innovate around the world. We are proud to work closely with AWS to help our customers strengthen their reliability, flexibility, scalability, security, and compliance in the cloud,” said Reinhard Waldinger, president at SoftwareONE EMEA. “As a global company headquartered in Switzerland, we welcome the continued growth and investment AWS is making in the region as it demonstrates how important Switzerland is in the global technology space. We look forward to empowering our customers with the scale and agility of AWS Cloud to further thrive and grow while improving security and cloud skills.”

AWS investment in Switzerland

Swiss companies have been among the earliest adopters of cloud services in Europe, and as the number of Swiss customers has grown, so has the size of AWS’s presence in the country. The new AWS Europe (Zurich) Region is the latest in AWS’s ongoing investment in Switzerland. In order to support its rapidly growing customer base across the country, AWS opened two offices in Switzerland, Zurich (2016) and Geneva (2017), and created new jobs, including technical experts, solutions architects, technical account managers, partner managers, systems engineers, and professional services experts.

AWS established Points of Presence in Zurich (2017 and 2019), connecting Switzerland to the AWS network backbone and offering customers access to AWS services like Amazon CloudFront and AWS Direct Connect, among others. Amazon CloudFront is a highly secure and programmable content delivery network that accelerates the delivery of data, videos, applications, and application programming interfaces (APIs) to users worldwide with low latency and high transfer speeds. AWS Direct Connect enables customers to establish private connectivity between AWS and their data center, office, or colocation environment. This can reduce network costs, increase bandwidth throughput, and provide a more consistent network experience.

In December 2019, AWS launched AWS Outposts in Switzerland. AWS Outposts offers customers and partners in Switzerland access to the same AWS infrastructure services, APIs, and tools in virtually any data center, colocation space, or on-premises facility for a truly consistent hybrid experience. AWS Outposts enables customers and partners to run key AWS services in their own data centers while connecting to a broad range of AWS global infrastructure services.

AWS continues to invest in the upskilling of local developers, students, and the next generation of IT leaders in Switzerland through programs like AWS re/Start, AWS Academy, and AWS Educate. These programs help learners of all backgrounds and experiences prepare for careers in the cloud. From higher education courses to full-time training programs and self-paced learning content, AWS education programs offer access to the skills needed to begin or grow a cloud career. Several universities in Switzerland, including Fachhochschule Luzern, Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz (FHNW), and Technische Berufsschule Zürich, have delivered AWS Academy courses as part of their curriculum. To date, 32 Swiss institutions participated in the AWS Academy program, and 16 offered classes in 2022.

As part of its AWS re/Start program, AWS collaborates with Swiss educational and training providers like Powerhouse Lausanne and Powercoders on programs targeted to unemployed and underemployed individuals. The programs prepare individuals with no technical experience for careers in the cloud and connect them to potential employers.

AWS has partnered with the ICT Berufsbildung Schweiz association for several years to deliver vocational education and training to Swiss workers. In 2020, AWS supported the association in its efforts to rework the national IT curriculum by helping develop new cloud modules that have been taught to every Swiss IT apprentice (3,000 per year) since 2021.

To continue fostering entrepreneurship in Switzerland, AWS offers startups and small businesses support through the AWS Activate program. This program provides access to guidance, one-on-one time with AWS experts, web-based training, self-paced labs, customer support, third-party offers, and an opportunity to access up to $100,000 in AWS service credits—all at no charge. AWS also works with venture capital investors, startup accelerators, and incubators to help startups grow in the cloud. In Switzerland, this includes fostering entrepreneurs such as the Swiss Startup Association and Swisspreneur, as well as venture capital firms like btov, F10, Redalpine, Verve Ventures, and Wingman Ventures to support the rapid growth of their portfolio companies.

Commitment to sustainability

Amazon is committed to becoming a more sustainable business and reaching net-zero carbon across its operations by 2040, 10 years ahead of the Paris Agreement, as part of The Climate Pledge. Amazon co-founded The Climate Pledge and became its first signatory in 2019. As part of its Climate Pledge commitment, Amazon is on a path to power its operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025, five years ahead of the original 2030 target. Amazon is the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy, and as of the end of 2021, the company reached 85% renewable energy across its business. See Amazon's public methodology for more on its approach . Organizations that move compute workloads to AWS can benefit from the net effect of Amazon’s sustainability efforts to reduce their carbon footprint. Compared to the computing resources of the average European company, AWS infrastructure is up to five times more energy efficient .