New Delhi, Dec. 11 -- Amazon Inc., which offers online retail, cloud services and streaming entertainment in India, on Wednesday said it will plough an additional $35 billion into the country over the next five years. The aggressive investment push will take its cumulative investment in Asia's second-largest economy to $75 billion by the end of the decade. The company said it is recasting its India plans around business expansion and three strategic pillars-artificial intelligence (AI)-driven digitization, export growth and job creation. The world's largest online retailer has already poured nearly $40 billion into India, building out its logistics, payments, cloud and retail infrastructure. In its statement, Amazon cited a report from consultancy Keystone Strategy, stating that the latest investment establishes Amazon as India's largest foreign investor and one of its top job creators. Amazon has created millions of jobs in India as it "invested at scale" to grow the physical and digital infrastructure for small businesses, senior vice-president for emerging markets Amit Agarwal said. The company promised to democratize access to AI for millions of Indians, create 1 million job opportunities, and quadruple e-commerce exports enabled to $80 billion by 2030. At Smbhav, an Amazon event for small and medium enterprises, Agarwal emphasized that India remains one of Amazon's largest long-term opportunities. Amazon's mega-investment is the biggest in a series of recent blockbuster plans from multinationals. On Tuesday, Microsoft announced its largest-ever Asian investment in India, committing $17.5 billion over four years to significantly expand its cloud and AI infrastructure. On 14 October, Google Cloud announced a $15 billion investment over five years to establish its first AI hub in India in Visakhapatnam. Earlier, a Reliance Industries-Brookfield-Digital Realty joint venture said it will invest $11 billion to build a data centre, also in Visakhapatnam. The investment helps Amazon bolster its defences in a market where it competes with Walmart-owned Flipkart and JioMart in online retail, PhonePe and Paytm in online payments, Microsoft and Google in cloud services, and Netflix plus a range of local services in streaming video. After holding out for long, it has also ventured into quick commerce, the theatre of a raging battle between BlinkIt and Instamart. India is already one of Amazon's largest marketplaces, and the company expects it to remain so, said Russell Grandinetti, Amazon's senior vice-president for international stores. "So, just on its own, the size, growth potential of our business in India makes it extremely important to us.". "There are many things we build and invent here, which would be enough just to be competitive in India, but then make Amazon stronger elsewhere. If you look at a programme like Easy Ship or Seller Flex or I Have Space - those are the things that we built because we needed to make our business in India the best we could. But Seller Flex, for instance, now operating in many countries around the world," Grandinetti said at the event. Amazon Easy Ship is a logistics service for Amazon sellers in India. Amazon's investment plan comes at a time of explosive growth in India's e-commerce market. India's overall retail market is expected to grow steadily from $1 trillion in 2024 to $1.700 trillion by 2030. Meanwhile, the online retail sector, valued at $75 billion in 2024, is projected to reach $260 billion by 2030. Online contribution to the overall retail market is projected to double from 7% in 2024 to 14% by 2030. Quick commerce has emerged as a new battlefront, promising deliveries within minutes and attracting aggressive investments from large online platforms looking to capture urban demand. A late entrant to this segment, Amazon has said it plans to exit 2025 with 300 dark stores. India's expertise in building a quick commerce business is now being replicated in other global markets, Grandinetti said. "Today, even if we look at quick commerce and the Amazon Now capability-we operate similar quick commerce capability in the UAE, Egypt, and Mexico. We recently just launched it in the US and a lot of that technology was built first here in India," he added. Amazon Now is the marketplace's quick delivery business. In 2023, Amazon president and chief executive Andy Jassy met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, where the company announced an additional $15 billion investment across its India businesses. "Additionally, so much of Amazon's leadership around the world-and so much of our capability comes from the employees and the talent we have found here. There is a large part of our team here that has had a huge impact on our company globally. The business we are building, the capabilities we need to compete here that make Amazon stronger around the world, and the talent we find here all make this such an incredibly important part of our business," Grandinetti said. The company, which began its online commerce operations in India in 2013, also operates Amazon Pay, Prime Video and Amazon Music locally. It competes with Walmart-backed Flipkart, as well as homegrown e-commerce platforms Meesho and Nykaa. As the market expands, companies have been ploughing more capital into reaching new shoppers, strengthening back-end infrastructure and speeding up delivery. Part of Amazon's spending push is already visible in its cloud and AI footprint: in May 2023, the company announced plans to invest $12.7 billion by 2030 to expand infrastructure across Telangana and Maharashtra. Earlier this year, it also committed fresh investments to enhance operations infrastructure and develop new tools and technology for its fulfilment network....