E-Paper
Fostering human capital and digital growth
This article is authored by David Zapolsky, chief global affairs and legal officer, Amazon.
When governments embrace technology and lean into forward-looking policies, they create conditions for companies to invest and drive inclusive growth for citizens and businesses alike. India’s journey demonstrates what’s possible when this happens: through strategic policy frameworks and regulatory clarity, India's leadership has positioned the nation as a destination for investing long-term capital, which in turn creates momentum for development.
This vision translates into practice. By fostering an ecosystem that encourages multi-decade commitments—building fulfilment networks, cloud infrastructure, and digital platforms—India has enabled durable outcomes that compound over time. Jobs multiply across supply chains. Small businesses gain global market access. Export capacity scales beyond what policy incentives alone could achieve. This is patient capital meeting progressive governance.
Amazon’s financial commitments in India, including fulfilment and data centres, have built critical infrastructure that supports business expansion, job creation, and export growth. We started our India marketplace in 2013 with 100 sellers, and since then over 1.7 million Indian sellers have sold on Amazon.in. We also have over 200,000 sellers on our Amazon Global Selling programme who have together sold over $20 billion in cumulative ecommerce exports through the programme in the last 10 years.
Our commitment to invest $35 billion more by 2030 will expand this infrastructure, enabling more sellers to access global markets and strengthening India's position as an e-commerce export hub. Additionally, Amazon’s data centres have bolstered the nation’s digital infrastructure, enabling advanced cloud and AI capabilities. Amazon’s deployment of long-term capital across people, infrastructure, and technology has contributed to India’s rapid transformation, aligned with initiatives like Digital India, Startup India, and Make in India.
Sustained investment has a measurable impact on employment across the economy. Amazon's footprint has supported 2.8 million direct, indirect, induced, and seasonal jobs in 2024—projected to reach 3.8 million in 2030—spanning technology, operations, logistics, and customer support. These roles offer competitive pay, comprehensive health benefits, and skills training that prepare Indians for a digital economy.
To sustain this job growth there needs to be a pipeline of skilled talent. Amazon is committed to bringing AI education and career exploration opportunities to four million students by 2030 through AI curriculum, technology career tours, hands-on AI sandbox experiences, and teacher training programmes. Investing in public education creates a more digitally literate society, expands the overall talent pool that benefits the entire economy, and ensures AI's benefits are democratised rather than concentrated. Through Amazon's Education Equity Initiative, which supports education and skills development organisations worldwide, SNS College of Engineering in India developed critical thinking and AI literacy platforms that reached 5,000 underserved community members.
This synergy between e-commerce and jobs is instrumental in realising the government’s vision of a Viksit Bharat, where technology empowers all and growth is inclusive.
Economic access requires private-sector execution at scale. Over the past decade, Amazon has brought 12 million small businesses online, supported by integrated access to payments, logistics, and market intelligence. This digitisation functions as genuine economic access, enabling small enterprises to scale operations and reach customers globally.
The results illustrate what becomes possible. A handicraft maker in Kutch ships to Germany. A spice merchant in Kerala serves diaspora communities worldwide. Amazon is the largest e-commerce exports enabler and we have taken a pledge to enable $80 billion in cumulative e-commerce exports from India by 2030. Geography becomes less limiting, and scale becomes achievable. This is what bringing businesses online truly means, providing visibility and access to global market.
India's digital transformation journey offers a compelling model for other emerging economies. When government builds the rails and private sector innovation runs on them, the results compound across the entire economy.
India’s commitment to transparent, consistent policy implementation has made it a destination for patient capital that allows businesses to prosper for decades. When government and business partner around shared priorities, the results are job creation, digitisation, and export growth. Amazon's success in India depends on India's success, which is why we're committed to ongoing compliance, talent development, and community investment.
India’s vision of Viksit Bharat is ambitious and achievable. It requires continued policy clarity and partnership between public and private sectors. When capital commits for decades and aligns with national priorities, countries grow faster and more inclusively.
This article is authored by David Zapolsky, chief global affairs and legal officer, Amazon.
