Amazon Web Services bolsters bet on local cloud, homegrown chips

Amazon.com Inc.’s cloud computing division is adding products that help customers maintain local control of their data, a bet that could help it fend off rivals Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google.

Amazon Web Services has a wide lead in selling on-demand software services, a business built on the economies of scale provided by vast server farms in data centers. Last year, the company went small, for the first time selling services for customers’ own data centers. The move acknowledged demand from customers requiring faster processing and the need to meet regulatory requirements by storing information inside their own walls.

AWS bolstered that bet on Tuesday, kicking off its annual customer conference with two new variants of Outposts, the server rack product it started selling a year ago.