Amazon Web Services (AWS) is launching a new data center facility in Athens with the aim of helping its customers enhance their capabilities in the age of Artificial Intelligence. This refers to the new Local Zone in Athens, which will be available in July 2026.
As AWS executives explained during a meeting with journalists, Local Zones deploy AWS cloud infrastructure—including computing power, storage, networking, analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and databases, within or near major cities.
According to Thanasis Patsakas, AWS Country Manager for Greece, Cyprus, and Malta, there are already several customers using the Local Zone prior to its official launch through an early access program.
He explained that the new Athens Local Zone allows organizations to store and process workloads within Greece and meet local data storage requirements. It also delivers low-latency performance, while customers can modernize older workloads and control where they run. Furthermore, it offers them access to powerful computing resources as well as the full range of available AWS services.
What Local Zones Solve
For those who may not be aware, most workloads run in AWS Regions—geographic locations where AWS operates data centers to serve customers. However, many organizations face the same challenge: their applications must be fast, their workloads must remain local, and their infrastructure must meet strict regulatory requirements.
When an AWS Region isn’t close enough to meet these requirements, organizations have traditionally had to procure, operate, and maintain their own IT infrastructure. AWS Local Zones eliminate this complexity by extending AWS-managed infrastructure to major cities, providing the same reliability and security that customers expect from AWS Regions.
The AWS Local Zone in Athens provides seamless connectivity to the full range of AWS services via a high-bandwidth connection and a secure network backbone to nearby AWS Regions.
It is also worth noting that the Local Zone in Athens will be one of the first in the world to offer Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) and Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) Local Snapshots, providing customers with local storage and snapshot capabilities to meet local data storage requirements.
When asked about the size of the investment, Mr. Patsakas replied that in 2025 alone, the company invested over $60 billion in Europe in this type of infrastructure, and therefore a portion of the investment goes to individual countries.
“We use our experience and our ongoing engagement with customers to scale our infrastructure to meet their needs,” he added.
At the same time, when asked how many companies they can currently support, he replied: “Thousands. We have no limit. Obviously, this infrastructure scales based on demand and market conditions.”
Which AWS customers are welcoming the new infrastructure
Finally, the AWS Country Manager for Greece, Cyprus, and Malta highlighted the AWS customers who welcomed the Athens Local Zone. One example is Omilia, which provides conversational AI services to companies worldwide through the agentic CX platform. Other customers who welcomed the new service include Profile Software and Skroutz.
Mr. Patsakas emphasized that the AWS Local Zone in Athens will help the company’s customers accelerate their digital transformation, adopt new technologies more quickly, and run their workloads locally, whatever they may be, and, as he noted, the company believes the new service will have a broader positive impact on the country’s economic growth.