By Supantha Mukherjee

Sept 11 (Reuters) - Internet giant Amazon's ( AMZN )

cloud computing arm, Amazon Web Services, said on Wednesday that

it plans to spend 8 billion pounds ($10.45 billion) in the

United Kingdom over the next five years to build, operate and

maintain data centres.

The company expects the investment project to contribute 14

billion pounds to the country's gross domestic product by the

end of 2028 and to support more than 14,000 jobs at British

businesses.

The project represents a step-up in the pace of Amazon's ( AMZN )

investment in Britain. Since 2022 AWS has invested 3 billion

pounds in facilities in London and Manchester.

"Our team that builds our data centres globally take into

account multiple levers that they have to look at before they

can decide where to put data centres ... from power to water to

the local environment," Tanuja Randery, a managing director at

AWS, told Reuters.

She singled out use of artificial intelligence as among the

factors driving demand for cloud services.

AWS has been investing heavily across Europe, announcing a

15.7 billion euros investment in Spain earlier this year and

another 7.8 billion euros in Germany.

Analysts and executives say many big corporate customers

have started spending again on cloud computing after pausing

last year, as interest in artificial intelligence drives a

rebound of growth in the $270 billion cloud infrastructure

market.

The investment was welcomed by British finance minister

Rachel Reeves, who has been courting foreign investors ahead of

an investment summit on Oct. 14.

Britain's government said the data centres would be located

to support demand in London and areas to the west, but that

Amazon ( AMZN ) would not disclose the exact locations for security

reasons.

"The government is also actively engaged in conversations

with the company about investments in other parts of the UK,"

the finance ministry said.

($1 = 0.7656 pounds)