AWS opens second ever Builder Studio space in Melbourne

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has opened its second ever Builder Studio space in Melbourne to help partners and customers develop prototypes using the cloud giant’s technology.

Based in Amazon’s Melbourne office, the AWS Builder Studio is open to partners and customers to construct solutions using AWS services, with the cloud giant claiming it can allow AWS users to “accelerate experimentation and develop new solutions faster and most cost effectively”.

The only other Builder Studio from the cloud giant is based in New York in the US, which opened in September 2023.

AWS users can meet with the company’s prototyping and cloud engineering team over a three- to six-week engagement based on Amazon’s “culture of innovation methodology”, the cloud giant claimed.

“Working backwards from customers’ needs, this approach helps organisations identify a business opportunity or challenge and use AWS services, skills and methodologies to rapidly experiment with new solutions,” AWS said in a statement.

“The aim is for customers to leave the engagement with a working prototype – an early sample of a product or application – enabling them to validate and test ideas before spending valuable resources launching solutions into real-world production.”

ARN understands that once a prototype is created, projects are then handed over to a partner, systems integrator or another division of AWS to bring it to production.

The space contains a workshop area for developers and engineers and a server room which contains AWS infrastructure like AWS Outpost racks to support low latency and local processing-based applications.

Also available is the Innovation Showroom, which contains real-world use cases of physical demonstrations utilising AWS technology such as the Intelligent Welcome, which uses generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to greet customers; Smart Space, which can use special computing and digital twins to create 3D rendered spaces; and Mi Casa, which uses Amazon smart home-based technology like Echo, FireTV and Ring to show how such devices can be used in houses and office spaces.

“We’re excited to call Melbourne the home of our first Asia Pacific AWS Builder Studio, which is another step in our commitment to help customers in Australia, and across the region, accelerate innovation across all industries,” said Rianne Van Veldhuizen, managing director at AWS in Australia and New Zealand.

“With breakthroughs in generative AI, robotics, IoT [internet of things] and other emerging technologies, our goal is to apply these technologies directly to customer user cases and make them more tangible, accessible and engaging for companies of all sizes.”  

The Melbourne-based space is being funded separately to the $13.2 billion investment AWS earmarked to go towards its existing cloud infrastructure in Sydney and Melbourne from 2023 to 2027 to meet growing customer demand for cloud services in Australia.

At the time the funding announcement was made, this was expected to support an estimated average of 11,000 full-time jobs including construction, facility maintenance, engineering, and telecommunications, among other roles.