In March 2006 Amazon launches S3, and in August EC2, materializing at commercial scale the concept of on-demand infrastructure computing, first theorized by John McCarthy in 1961. Originating from a 2003 internal meeting led by Andy Jassy, AWS eliminates the capital barrier for startups to build tech infrastructure, enabling companies like Dropbox, Netflix, and Airbnb, and redefining data geopolitics — one of the direct drivers of regulations like GDPR (2018).