How AWS is Driving Cloud and AI Climate Tech Solutions

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has used its flagship re:Invent conference in the United States to send a clear message about the role of climate technology, with Kara Hurst, Amazon’s CSO, stressing that cloud and AI are now fundamental to developing the next generation of climate solutions ranging from wildlife conservation to creating healthier and more sustainable food systems.

“I’m especially excited about continued investment in climate solutions,” Kara says.

This focus is evident in how investments in climate technologies are increasingly integrated into AWS’ product roadmap and customer programmes, rather than being managed as a distinct workstream.

Expanding the AWS Imagine Grant programme

At the heart of AWS's climate investment strategy is the expansion of its Imagine Grant programme. This initiative funds sustainable non-profits and supports them to use cloud technology effectively.

This year sees the largest cohort to date, with 39 new recipients of the grant spanning three continents. This growth could reflect a rising demand among charities and research organisations for access to industrial-scale data and AI tools.

A notable trend within this round of funding is the integration of AI. Almost every project in the 2025 cohort has an AI component that underlines a move for machine learning from an experimental phase to a core capability within the non-profit sector.

These organisations are looking to manage richer datasets and address more complex challenges.

AI in conservation and public health

Among the notable recipients is the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, which is working to unlock the value of its extensive conservation archive. According to AWS, the foundation is using its technology to convert four decades of conservation information, approximately 15 terabytes of historical data, into actionable insights for wildlife protection and habitat preservation.

By moving this data to the cloud and applying AI, the foundation can identify patterns that would be nearly impossible to detect manually, such as changing migration routes or emerging risks to vulnerable ecosystems. This could enable conservationists to make more timely and data-driven decisions.

Another Imagine Grant project sits at the intersection of climate and public health. The initiative is led by the George Institute for Global Health and its FoodSwitch platform uses AI and machine learning to analyse both the nutritional quality of food products and their environmental impact.

The platform highlights how everyday supermarket choices are directly linked to planetary health. The project aims to provide consumers, policymakers and the food industry with clearer visibility of which products support both healthier diets and lower emissions, transforming complex lifecycle data into simple, actionable information.

Enabling climate innovation through technology

Many organisations in the new Imagine Grant cohort are working on projects that overlap environmental sustainability with wider social outcomes. They are using AWS’s cloud and AI services to connect fragmented datasets, reveal new relationships and design more targeted interventions.

These interventions range from restoring habitats and improving food systems to protecting vulnerable communities from climate-related risks.

Kara notes that the investments AWS has made in start-ups this year are a great source of pride.

"Almost every project has an AI component," she says, "and several are doing remarkable work at the intersection of climate, sustainability and innovation."

Behind these individual projects is a broader strategy from AWS to function as an enabling platform for climate innovation.

By providing scalable storage, computing power and AI capabilities to non-profits that might struggle to build such infrastructure themselves, AWS helps them process decades of data, run sophisticated models and share insights globally without facing prohibitive capital costs.

This model allows climate technology to be disseminated more rapidly and widely, placing tools once exclusive to large commercial entities into the hands of conservationists, public health experts and community organisations. The continued investment in these solutions is no longer a side story at re:Invent but a central theme, connecting advances in data, infrastructure and artificial intelligence.