GYEONGJU, South Korea, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Amazon Web

Services will invest at least $5 billion in South Korea by 2031

to build new artificial intelligence data centres in the Asian

country, South Korea's presidential office said on Wednesday.

The announcement was made during AWS chief executive officer

Matt Garman's meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae

Myung on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation

(APEC) summit, Lee's office said in a statement.

Amazon ( AMZN ) is one of seven global firms whose

executives attended the group meeting with Lee in Gyeongju,

South Korea, and pledged a total of $9 billion in investments

for the next five years, the presidential office said.

Amazon's ( AMZN ) investment will accelerate the growth of an

ecosystem for the AI industry in South Korea, as the country

aims to become one of the world's top three AI leaders, Lee said

at the meeting with Garman.

"At AWS, we've invested and committed to investment of an

additional $40 billion across 14 non-U.S. APEC countries and

economies between now and 2028," Garman said.

"And, that $40 billion actually drives an additional $45

billion in U.S. GDP and downstream benefit, benefiting all of

the APEC economy," he said at a business event on the sidelines

of the summit.

AWS unveiled in June a $5 billion investment plan in South Korea

with local conglomerate SK Group for building the country's

biggest data centre. It has also announced investments in other

countries including Japan, Australia and Singapore.