Apple announced the M2 Ultra processor, a new chip for its Mac Studio workstation for professional users. From a report: The chip has 134 transistors and 24 central processing unit (CPU) cores with 20% faster performance. It has up to 76 graphics processing unit (GPU) cores at up to 30% faster performance. Apple made the announcement at its WWDC event today on the Apple campus in Cupertino, California.

The chip will go into the Mac Studio product, which previously used Intel silicon. These are machines like those used by engineers to deliver Saturday Night Live or create blockbuster movies, said Jennifer Munn at Apple. Apple said this completes the transition to Apple silicon. Developers can build new versions of apps at warp speed, with up to 25% faster performance than in the past, Munn said. The 32-core neural engine is 40% faster at AI calculations. It supports 192 gigabytes of unified memory, which is 50% more than M1 Ultra.

This week the Linux Foundation announced the publication of The Open Source Opportunity for Microgrids: Five Ways to Drive Innovation and Overcome Market Barriers for Energy Resilience. "The research informs readers about microgrids — groups of distributed energy resources designed to improve energy resiliency, with the ability to operate as part of a larger electrical grid, or separately as an island."

The report highlights the current state of the microgrid market and explores the potential for open source technology to accelerate the adoption of microgrids worldwide... The report concludes that microgrids are an essential tool to improve energy resilience and advance decarbonization, and that the market faces a range of challenges that the open source ecosystem is well positioned to address.
Among other things, the report "examines how participation in relevant open source programs and activities can help address gaps and challenges," according to the announcement, "and accelerate the learning, development, and governance of microgrid initiatives." One focus of the report is "enabling market innovation toward energy resilience at scale, supporting the Energy sector to adopt proven open source-enabled business models, security benefits, and cost reductions demonstrated in the IT and Telecom industries."

And according to the foundation's senior vice president of research and communications, the report also "describes the opportunities for open source to accelerate the proliferation of microgrids as a mechanism for clean energy production and consumption."

ARM has joined the Linux Foundation's Open Programmable Infrastructure project, "a community-driven initiative focused on creating a standards-based open ecosystem for next-generation architectures and frameworks" based on programmable processor technologies like DPUs (Data Processing Units) and IPUs (Infrastructure Processing Units).

From the Linux Foundation's announcement: Launched in June 2021 under the Linux Foundation, the project is focused on utilizing open software and standards, as well as frameworks and toolkits, to enable the rapid adoption of DPUs. Arm joins other premier members including Dell Technologies, F5, Intel, Keysight Technologies, Marvell, Nvidia, Red Hat, Tencent, and ZTE. These member companies work together to create an ecosystem of blueprints and standards to ensure that compliant DPUs work with any server.

DPUs are used today to accelerate networking, security, and storage tasks. In addition to performance benefits, DPUs help improve data center security by providing physical isolation for running infrastructure tasks. DPUs also help to reduce latency and improve performance for applications that require real-time data processing. As DPUs create a logical split between infrastructure compute and client applications, the manageability of workloads within different development and management teams is streamlined.

"Arm has been contributing to the OPI Project for a while now," said Kris Murphy, Chair of the OPI Project Governing Board and Senior Principal Software Engineer at Red Hat. "Now, as a premier member, we are excited that they're bringing their leadership to the Governing Board and expertise to the technical steering committee and working groups. Their participation will help to ensure that the DPU components are optimized for programmable infrastructure solutions."

"Across network, storage, and security applications, DPUs are already proving the power efficiency and capex benefits of specialized processing technology," said Marc Meunier, director of ecosystem development, Infrastructure Line of Business, Arm and member of OPI Governing Board. "As a premier member of the OPI project, we look forward to contributing our expertise in heterogeneous computing and working with other leaders in the industry to create solution blueprints and standards that pave the way for successful deployments."

"The DPU market offers an opportunity for us to change how infrastructure services can be deployed and managed," Arpit Joshipura, General Manager, Networking, Edge, and IoT, the Linux Foundation. "With collaboration across software and hardware vendors representing silicon devices and the entire DPU software stack, the OPI Project is creating an open ecosystem for next generation data centers, private clouds, and edge deployments."

Longtime Slashdot reader MightyMartian shares a report from the New York Times: Arizona has determined that there is not enough groundwater for all of the housing construction that has already been approved in the Phoenix area, and will stop developers from building some new subdivisions (Source paywalled, alternative source), a sign of looming trouble in the West and other places where overuse, drought and climate change are straining water supplies. The decision by state officials very likely means the beginning of the end to the explosive development that has made the Phoenix area the fastest growing metropolitan region in the country. The state said it would not revoke building permits that have already been issued and is instead counting on new water conservation measures and alternative sources to produce the water necessary for housing developments that have already been approved.

Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and its suburbs, gets more than half its water supply from groundwater. Most of the rest comes from rivers and aqueducts as well as recycled wastewater. In practical terms, groundwater is a finite resource; it can take thousands of years or longer to be replenished. The announcement of a groundwater shortage means Arizona would no longer give developers in some areas of Maricopa County new permits to construct homes that rely on wells for water.

Phoenix and nearby large cities, which must obtain separate permission from state officials for their development plans every 10 to 15 years, would also be denied approval for any homes that rely on groundwater beyond what the state has already authorized. The decision means cities and developers must look for alternative sources of water to support future development -- for example, by trying to buy access to river water from farmers or Native American tribes, many of whom are facing their own shortages. That rush to buy water is likely to rattle the real estate market in Arizona, making homes more expensive and threatening the relatively low housing costs that had made the region a magnet for people from across the country.

An anonymous reader shares an opinion piece from the Guardian's Arwa Mahdawi: Insurance company documents aren't exactly renowned for being riveting reading. This week, however, State Farm, the largest insurance firm in the US by premium volume, came out with an eyeball-grabbing update: it has stopped accepting new homeowner insurance applications in California. In a statement, the company said the decision was based on the heightened risk of natural disasters, such as wildfires, along with historic increases in construction costs.

This news didn't come out of nowhere. Last year, two large insurance firms in California ended their coverage for some multimillion-dollar houses in wildfire-prone areas. "We cannot charge an adequate price for the risk," one insurance company CEO explained in an earnings call. But the scope of this announcement seems unprecedented. The US's biggest insurer halting new policies in the US's most populous state? A state with a population of nearly 40 million suddenly having its home insurance options curtailed because insurance companies know that extreme weather is only getting worse and more expensive?

If this doesn't serve as a wake-up call about the climate crisis, I don't know what will. Melting ice caps may be abstract enough to ignore, but plummeting house prices have a way of getting people's attention. House prices haven't plummeted yet, of course. Quite the opposite: California is an incredibly expensive place to live. But if you can't get insurance, it's almost impossible to get a mortgage. This makes it harder to sell your house and will make prices go down. The writing is on the wall, as insurance companies are well aware.

IBM has announced its goal to build a 100,000-qubit quantum computing machine within the next 10 years in collaboration with the University of Tokyo and the University of Chicago. MIT Technology Review reports: Late last year, IBM took the record for the largest quantum computing system with a processor that contained 433 quantum bits, or qubits, the fundamental building blocks of quantum information processing. Now, the company has set its sights on a much bigger target: a 100,000-qubit machine that it aims to build within 10 years. IBM made the announcement on May 22 at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan. The company will partner with the University of Tokyo and the University of Chicago in a $100 million dollar initiative to push quantum computing into the realm of full-scale operation, where the technology could potentially tackle pressing problems that no standard supercomputer can solve.

Or at least it can't solve them alone. The idea is that the 100,000 qubits will work alongside the best "classical" supercomputers to achieve new breakthroughs in drug discovery, fertilizer production, battery performance, and a host of other applications. "I call this quantum-centric supercomputing," IBM's VP of quantum, Jay Gambetta, told MIT Technology Review in an in-person interview in London last week. [...] IBM has already done proof-of-principle experiments (PDF) showing that integrated circuits based on "complementary metal oxide semiconductor" (CMOS) technology can be installed next to the cold qubits to control them with just tens of milliwatts. Beyond that, he admits, the technology required for quantum-centric supercomputing does not yet exist: that is why academic research is a vital part of the project.

The qubits will exist on a type of modular chip that is only just beginning to take shape in IBM labs. Modularity, essential when it will be impossible to put enough qubits on a single chip, requires interconnects that transfer quantum information between modules. IBM's "Kookaburra," a 1,386-qubit multichip processor with a quantum communication link, is under development and slated for release in 2025. Other necessary innovations are where the universities come in. Researchers at Tokyo and Chicago have already made significant strides in areas such as components and communication innovations that could be vital parts of the final product, Gambetta says. He thinks there will likely be many more industry-academic collaborations to come over the next decade. "We have to help the universities do what they do best," he says.

Amazon.com will close its official app store in China in July, the latest retreat from the Chinese market by the US tech giant following last year's announcement that its Kindle e-book service would also shut. From a report: An Amazon representative said the Amazon Appstore, launched in 2011 as an alternative to Google for Android phone users to install apps and games, will be "discontinued." However, its official shopping site Amazon.cn will remain operational, as will other services such as Amazon Global Selling, Amazon Global Store and cloud unit Amazon Web Services (AWS). The app store service will shut down on July 17, according to Chinese media The Paper, citing a Tuesday email from Amazon Appstore sent to users, which did not elaborate on the reasons for quitting the market. The Amazon Appstore could not be downloaded from its official Chinese site as of Tuesday.

Amazon's cloud customers are clamoring to get their hands on the ChatGPT-style technology the company unveiled six weeks ago. But instead of being allowed to test it, many are being told to sit tight, prompting concerns the artificial intelligence tool isn't fully baked. From a report: Amazon's announcement that it had entered the generative AI race was uncharacteristically vague, according to longtime employees and customers. Amazon Web Services product launches typically include glowing testimonials from three to five customers, these people said. This time the company cited just one: Coda, a document-editing startup.

Coda Chief Executive Officer Shishir Mehrotra said that after testing the technology he awarded Amazon an "incomplete" grade. The company's generative AI tools are "all fairly early," he said in an interview. "They're building on and repackaging services that they already offered." Mehrotra added that he expected AWS's AI tools to be competitive long-term. People familiar with AWS product launches wondered if Amazon released the AI tools to counter perceptions it has fallen behind cloud rivals Microsoft and Alphabet's Google. Both companies are using generative AI -- which mines vast quantities of data to generate text or images -- to revamp web search and add AI capabilities to a host of products. The technology is unrefined and error-prone, but no one denies its potential to revolutionize computing.

Ford is reversing course on AM radio. From a report: In a tweet today, CEO Jim Farley announced the company was backing off its decision to release new vehicles without AM radio broadcast capabilities. Instead, all 2024 Ford and Lincoln models will be able to tune in to AM radio. And for the two electric vehicles released without AM radio capabilities, a software update would be pushed to restore it. The announcement came after Farley said he spoke with policy leaders on the "importance of AM broadcast radio as a part of the emergency alert system." A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation in Washington last week that would require automakers to keep AM radio in all their vehicles. The bill was proposed in response to an increasing number of vehicles coming out without the first-generation radio broadcast technology.

ElizabethGreene writes: NCommander announced today that SoylentNews, a fork of Slashdot created in the early 2010s, will be shutting down on June 30th of this year.

Goodbye old friend.
UPDATE (5/27/2023): After the announcement, the appearance of some volunteers gave hope that the site possibly might not have to shut down.

Here's an excerpt from NCommander's original lengthy post, which covered the technical reasons, challenges faced, and the ultimate decision to shut down the operations of SoylentNews: This is the post I never thought I would have to make. I am also writing this post on behalf of SoylentNews PBC, the legal owner of SoylentNews, and not as a member of the staff or the community.

SoylentNews is going to shut down operations on June 30th.

This wasn't an easy decision to come to, and it's ultimately the culmination of a lot of factors, some which were in my control, and some that weren't. A large part boils down to critical maintenance to the site not properly being performed for a very long time. To pay back the mountain of technical debt we've built up, it would require relaunching the site from scratch. I'll discuss this more in depth below, but I can't personally justify the time any more, especially due to the negative impact that SN is having on my personal life. Before we shut down, at least for the foreseeable future, I'm going to outline the situation as I see it, my own personal responsibility, and what happens next. [...]

A prosecutor in Germany has indicted former executives of surveillance technology company FinFisher GmbH, accusing them of unlawfully supplying the Turkish secret services with spyware that could be used to hack into phones and computers. From a report: In an announcement on Monday, a spokesperson for the Munich Public Prosecutor's said that the office had carried out an "extensive and complex" investigation of the company following searches of 15 properties. Four of the company's managing directors had violated foreign trade laws, according to the prosecutor's office. The prosecutor's office named the indicted directors only as "G," "H," "T" and "D." FinFisher, prosecutors say, signed a contact in January 2015 worth $5.4 million to supply spyware to Turkey's National Intelligence Organization, but did not receive the necessary export approval from German authorities. Instead, company executives sought to conceal the deal by transferring the technology through another company they had established in Bulgaria, according to the prosecutor, though all business activities were still controlled and coordinated out of Munich.

Violations of export licensing requirements under Germany's Foreign Trade and Payments can be punishable with a prison sentence of between three months and five years. The prosecutor's office pointed to a particular provision of the law that states a prison sentence of not less than one year shall be imposed if a person if found to have acted for the secret service of a foreign power. The Munich prosecutor began investigating FinFisher in the summer of 2019, after a coalition of advocacy groups filed a criminal complaint against the company, alleging that it had supplied its spyware to Turkey without obtaining the required license from Germany's federal government. The spyware had been used in Turkey to infect the phones of government critics, monitoring their calls, text messages, photos and location data, according to a technical report published by the digital rights group Access Now.

Artificial intelligence is increasingly being tapped to address the impacts of climate change. From a report: Google's latest announcement is one example. Countries across Africa, the Asia-Pacific region, Europe, and South and Central America can now use its AI-enabled platform that displays flood forecasts. Starting Monday, governments, aid organizations and people in 60 countries across these regions are able to access Google's flood prediction information up to seven days in advance of an incoming flood.

Initially launched in 2021, Flood Hub displays forecasts for riverine floods -- or floods that take place when streams or rivers overflow their banks and into surrounding areas -- showing when and where they are likely to occur. Human-caused climate change can cause these kinds of floods to become larger or more frequent than they used to be, per the EPA. Regions with high percentages of population vulnerable to flood risk -- like the Netherlands, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia as well as Myanmar, which was just struck by Cyclone Mocha -- are now on Google's list of forecastable places. It can also be used in parts of the Central American "dry corridor" in Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala -- where climate change and conflict collide.

The Washington Post notes a trend at U.S. colleges like the University of Maryland: "booming enrollment in computer science and plummeting student demand for the humanities." The number of students nationwide seeking four-year degrees in computer and information sciences and related fields shot up 34 percent from 2017 to 2022, to about 573,000, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The English-major head count fell 23 percent in that time, to about 113,000. History fell 12 percent, to about 77,000... In 2010, arts and humanities majors of all kinds outnumbered the computer science total at the University of Maryland more than 4 to 1. Now the university counts about 2,400 students majoring in arts and humanities — a collection of disciplines that fill an entire college — and about 3,300 in computer science...

As with many schools, the University of Maryland is searching for a new academic equilibrium to simultaneously handle rising demand for tech credentials and preserve what appear to be vulnerable pillars of the humanist tradition. New majors, such as "immersive media design," are arising to bridge technology and humanities as departments in older fields push to stay competitive. The ferment has fed debate about the purpose of college, the value of degrees and how much career prospects — rather than passion for learning — shape the academic paths that students take. Some schools have taken radical steps. Marymount University, a Catholic institution in Northern Virginia, decided in February to phase out history and English majors, citing low enrollment and a responsibility to prepare students "for the fulfilling, in-demand careers of the future." St. Mary's University of Minnesota made a similar announcement last year. There is no sign that more prominent colleges and universities will follow suit...

Computer science, a base for exploring artificial intelligence and other topics, is not the only hot subject these days. Data science has taken off over the past decade. So has nursing. Business, management and marketing have enduring appeal. In a time of economic upheaval, avoiding debt and landing a good job are top goals for many students. Value matters. "Public confidence in college paying off is being questioned at a higher rate than ever before," Michael Itzkowitz, former director of the federal College Scorecard, wrote in an email. "Some of this has to do with rising tuition costs. Some of this was influenced by the pandemic, where many students were questioning the cost they were paying to learn from their home computer, rather than being on a physical college campus."

"Google Chrome will now check for typos in your URLs and display suggested websites based on what it thinks you meant," reports the Verge.

From Google's announcement: When you type a website into the Chrome address bar, it will now detect URL typos and suggest websites based on the corrections. This increases accessibility for people with dyslexia, language learners, and anyone who makes typos by making it easier to get to previously visited websites despite spelling errors. This feature is now available on Chrome desktop and will roll out to mobile in the coming months.
It was one of several new and recently launched features Google touted as part of Thursday's Global Accessibility Awareness Day.

Google also announced its Lookout app (which provides audio cues for low-vision users) can now provide descriptions of images on web pages "powered by an advanced visual language model developed by Google DeepMind." And Chrome on Android recently updated its TalkBack screen reader so tab switching now also offers a tab grid with additional features like tab groups, bulk tab actions and reordering.

It's an educational pocket-sized codable computer with a motion detector, compass, and other sensors. Wikipedia describes the micro:bit as "half the size of a credit card" -- (43 mm x 52 mm or 1.7 inches by 2.0 inches).

Now long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: If British schoolchildren aren't inspired to code by the tiny 5x5 grid of LED lights on the micro:bit single-board computer, well it's not for lack of trying. The BBC on Monday announced a partnership with Microsoft, Arm, and others that will offer a classroom set of 30 free handheld BBC micro:bits (about 700,000 total devices) and brand-new teaching resources to every primary school across the UK "to support all schoolchildren and teachers..."

The news follows January's announcement of the Micro:bit Educational Foundation's newest partnership. They teamed with US-based/tech giant-backed nonprofit Code.org to offer teachers computing resources to incorporate the micro:bit in Code.org's CS Fundamentals curriculum (aimed at children in Kindergarten-5th Grade).

Microsoft is a Founding Partner of both the Micro:bit Educational Foundation and Code.org, and back in 2015 Microsoft also partnered with the BBC to provide an estimated 1 million free micro:bits to every 11- and 12-year old in the UK. A 2017 research paper reported that after testing with 15 teachers, "primarily comments around engagement were positive." But one skeptical teacher offered some doubts about the appeal of a small relatively low-tech device to younger children. "I mean I think it's cute but I could easily see why you know a 4K mobile phone screen is going to hold more appeal than regular LEDs ... I think there is merit in that but I could see how people would understandably go where's the screen?"

Wikipedia describes Freenet as "a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant, anonymous communication," released in the year 2000. "Both Freenet and some of its associated tools were originally designed by Ian Clarke," Wikipedia adds. (And in 2000 Clarke answered questions from Slashdot's readers...)

And now Ian Clarke (aka Sanity — Slashdot reader #1,431) returns to share this announcement: Freenet, a familiar name to Slashdot readers for over 23 years, has undergone a radical transformation: Freenet 2023, or "Locutus". While the original Freenet was like a decentralized hard drive, the new Freenet is like a full decentralized computer, allowing the creation of entirely decentralized services like messaging, group chat, search, social networking, among others. The new Freenet is implemented in Rust and designed for efficiency, flexibility, and transparency to the end user.
"Designed for simplicity and flexibility, Freenet 2023 can be used seamlessly through your web browser, providing an experience that feels just like using the traditional web," explains the announcement...

And in the comments below, Ian points out that "When the new Freenet is up and running, I think it will be the first system of any kind that could host something like Wikipedia, not just the data but the wiki CMS system it's built on. An editable wikipedia, entirely decentralized and very scalable...

"We've already had interest from everyone from video game developers who want to build a decentralized MMORPG, to political advocacy groups across the political spectrum. Plenty of people value freedom."

Two years ago Slashdot covered "the ad-free, privacy-first search engine from ex-Googlers" — with a $4.95 monthly subscription fee.

Today long-time Slashdot reader imcdona brings the news that "Neeva" is now shutting down. From Neeva's announcement: We started Neeva with the mission to take search back to its users. Having worked on search and search ads for over a decade, we sincerely believed that there was space for a model of search that put user and not advertiser interests first — a private, ads-free experience.

Building search engines is hard. It is even harder to do with a tiny team of 50 people who are up against entrenched organizations with endless resources. We overcame these obstacles and built a search stack from the ground up, running a crawl that fetched petabytes of information from the web and used that to power an independent search stack.

In early 2022, the upcoming impact of generative AI and LLMs became clear to us. We embarked on an ambitious effort to seamlessly blend LLMs into our search stack. We rallied the Neeva team around the vision to create an answer engine. We are proud of being the first search engine to provide cited, real-time AI answers to a majority of queries early this year.

But throughout this journey, we've discovered that it is one thing to build a search engine, and an entirely different thing to convince regular users of the need to switch to a better choice. From the unnecessary friction required to change default search settings, to the challenges in helping people understand the difference between a search engine and a browser, acquiring users has been really hard. Contrary to popular belief, convincing users to pay for a better experience was actually a less difficult problem compared to getting them to try a new search engine in the first place.

These headwinds, combined with the different economic environment, have made it clear that there is no longer a path towards creating a sustainable business in consumer search.

As a result, over the next few weeks, we will be shutting down neeva.com and our consumer search product, and shifting to a new area of focus.
"As part of the shutdown, we are deleting all user data..." the announcement emphasizes. "We are truly grateful to our community, and we are truly sorry that we aren't able to continue to provide the search engine that you want and deserve."

So what happens next? Many of the techniques we have pioneered with small models, size reduction, latency reduction, and inexpensive deployment are the elements that enterprises really want, and need, today. We are actively exploring how we can apply our search and LLM expertise in these settings, and we will provide updates on the future of our work and our team in the next few weeks.

The UK government has announced an investment of up to $1.25 billion in the domestic semiconductor industry, but has been criticised for declining to join the spending race that has seen the US and EU announce significantly bigger programmes. From a report: Labour accused the government of lacking ambition in its announcement, while one UK startup said the 1bn pound figure was less than the cost of one basic semiconductor plant. The U's long-awaited national semiconductor strategy would focus on the country's existing strengths in the technology. Semiconductors, or microchips, are the "brains" of electronic devices, formed by wafers of silicon that are key to most forms of modern technology, from cars, smartphones and kitchen devices to power stations. Under the strategy, the planned decade-long investment would be targeted at areas such as design, research and development. "Semiconductors underpin the devices we use every day and will be crucial to advancing the technologies of tomorrow," said the prime minister, Rishi Sunak. "Our new strategy focuses our efforts on where our strengths lie, in areas like research and design, so we can build our competitive edge on the global stage."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Federal Communications Commission sided with Starlink in a battle against Dish Network today, rejecting a Dish proposal that could have degraded Internet service for Starlink satellite users. In a 4-0 vote, the FCC decided not to authorize high-powered terrestrial mobile service in the 12.2-12.7 GHz band that is already used by Starlink customer terminals for downloads. The vote "ensure[s] the present and future of satellite services in the 12.2-12.7 GHz band. We recognize that millions of people rely on services in this band -- and we want to see that continue," FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said at today's meeting. The band is also used for satellite TV.

In its announcement of the vote, the FCC said it "declin[ed] to authorize two-way, high-powered terrestrial mobile use due to a significant risk of harmful interference to existing and emergent services, particularly in the growing satellite broadband market." Dish already uses spectrum from the 12.2-12.7 GHz band for satellite TV and wants to use the band for cellular service as well. While the FCC rejected the mobile proposal, it said it would investigate the potential to expand terrestrial fixed use or permit unlicensed use in that spectrum. Specifically, the FCC will seek comment on allowing point-to-point fixed links in 12.2-12.7 GHz at higher power levels than the current rules allow and on "adding indoor-only underlay and unlicensed use." The agency also teed up a plan that could eventually allow mobile broadband in the adjacent 12.7-13.25 GHz band. "Thank you to the 100K+ Starlink customers who spoke up, the FCC voted to protect high-speed satellite Internet users from harmful interference," Starlink wrote on Twitter today.

Amazon plans to invest $12.7 billion into its cloud business in India by 2030, the e-commerce group said Thursday, as it pushes ahead to scale up the AWS infrastructure in the key overseas market at a time when it has pared back several other services in the region. From a report: The U.S. giant, which earlier invested $3.7 billion on AWS infra in India and currently maintains two data center regions in the South Asian market, said its spendings will support 131,700 full-time jobs across roles such as engineering, telecommunications and construction. Thursday's announcement is a noteworthy escalation in AWS's initial strategy. The cloud giant had earlier said that it will invest $4.4 billion on AWS in the South Asian economy.