As it seeks to stay abreast of competitors in offering cloud computing services, Amazon.com, Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) has launched its Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers in London. Last year the cloud giant highlighted its intentions of opening a data center in the UK by the end of 2016 and true to its word, this has come to pass. This is the third AWS region to go live in Europe according to Jeff Barr of AWS . AWS now has 16 available areas and 42 availability zones inside of those regions.

The new area in London will feature two availability zones, which will be complemented by a wide range of services other than just the first cloud-based computing and storage resources. It will also supplement the current European regions in Ireland and Frankfurt. However, Amazon Web Services refused to spell out precisely how many facilities it operates in the country.

Expansion of the cloud computing infrastructure in the U.K

Apparently, many government and health-care customers are now moving their computing functions into the cloud. In this regard, Amazon CTO Werner Vogels writes, “With the launch of the AWS Europe (London) Region, AWS can enable many more UK enterprise, public sector and startup customers to reduce IT costs, address data locality needs, and embark on rapid transformations in critical new areas, such as big data analysis and Internet of Things.”

There is already a notable saving of about 3.5 billion pounds ($4.4 billion) by the government as a result of hosting data in the cloud according to the U.K.’s national technology adviser, Liam Maxwell.

But there are implications

The ability to store data in the U.K. is becoming increasingly important. Nonetheless, ‘All that glitters is not gold’ as they say. Amazon will have to face stiff competition from Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) Azure and Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google Cloud Platform.

There are privacy issues as well. Since the Brexit vote, a lot of clients are questioning whether or not the British data privacy rules will deviate from European standards.  However, Amazon has always given the mandate to users to decide where their data should reside.  Meanwhile, Amazon’s stock closed at $768.82 a decrease of $5.52 or 0.71%.