AWS re:Invent 2024 recap for government agencies

At AWS re:Invent 2024, which took place last December in Las Vegas, HAQM Web Services (AWS) unveiled an array of cutting-edge innovations during a week of keynotes, innovation talks, breakout sessions, product launches, interactive demos, and networking opportunities. For stakeholders in the public sector, the conference offered a whole host of important announcements, compelling themes, and inspiring customer stories. In this post, we highlight the key takeaways from AWS re:Invent 2024 for government agencies. So if you’re a government leader and you want to get up to speed on all the essential information and insights from AWS re:Invent 2024, we’ve compiled what you’re looking for here.

Revisit key re:Invent announcements

At re:Invent 2024, AWS launched numerous new offerings across analytics, compute, containers, database, security, identity, compliance, and other areas. But the biggest focus was on generative AI with over 25 new product and feature launches. For a quick summary of all the major product announcements, read this roundup of the top announcements of AWS re:Invent 2024.

Explore the latest generative AI innovations

Many public sector organizations today are looking to leverage generative AI with sensitive data that must remain on premises due to data residency requirements. Additionally, some organizations with data generated at the edge need to run small language models (SLMs) locally for real-time processing. This session from re:Invent 2024 discusses how to select, fine-tune, and deploy SLMs for on-premises and edge use cases using AWS hybrid and edge services. This session showcases how the United Nations and governments around the world are utilizing generative AI to enhance citizen services and social impact, and addresses key considerations for using AI responsibly, mitigating biases, and enabling transparency and data privacy protection. This session explains how generative AI technologies and techniques can be used by the public sector agencies to improve the delivery of citizen experiences.

Supercharge your growth with AWS services, solutions, and partners

AWS public sector customers are accelerating their time to value and mission impact by leveraging specialized skills and solutions from AWS and the AWS Partner Network. This presentation from re:Invent 2024 highlights how the Santa Clara County (SCC) Public Health Department worked with the AWS Professional Services team to implement a collaborative public health data platform. If you’re interested learning how to engage with an AWS Partner, this session reveals how the latest AWS Partner Program updates and innovations—including generative AI programs, digital sovereignty, solution building, and managed services—can help propel your organization forward.

AWS Marketplace for the US Intelligence Community allows AWS Partners and customers to streamline procurement and provisioning of third-party software and services in air-gapped environments. This session showcases how the US Space Force procured and deployed generative AI solutions in the AWS Secret and Top Secret Regions using AWS Marketplace for the US Intelligence Community and generative AI solutions from AWS Partners like C3 AI.

Water is a precious resource, and organizations around the globe are stepping up to do their part in protecting it. This session highlights the efforts of AWS to conserve and reuse water across its onsite operations and in communities where it operates as part of its water positive (water+) commitment.

Increase operational efficiency using CloudOps and platform engineering

A question that is top of mind for many leaders in government agencies today is: How can we reduce operating costs, boost efficiency, and improve our security and compliance posture while delivering on our mission goals? Watch this lightning talk to learn how you can empower your CloudOps teams to do more with a governance-by-default approach. This talk gives you a comprehensive guide on how to maximize the effectiveness of platform engineering, and highlights how leveraging AI can boost developer productivity. Lastly, this session shows you how to transform your IT operations to be more agile, resilient, efficient, and secure, make operations more intelligent to eliminate repetitive tasks, and gain deeper insight for better decision-making.

Unlock the power of your data to deliver business insights

The ability to make quick decisions in a secure manner is a critical advantage for the US Armed Forces. This session brings together leadership from each branch of the US Armed Forces to discuss the data-driven strategies that they use make to make information accessible and drive decision-making.

With rising concerns over data privacy, security, and digital sovereignty, many countries across the world are strengthening data residency laws to keep personal and sensitive data within their borders. Both this session and this session explore best practices around data residency using the AWS Well-Architected Framework and hybrid cloud services, including AWS Local Zones, AWS Dedicated Local Zones, and AWS Outposts.

Utilize AWS to run secure mission-critical workloads

AWS enables the secure, reliable deployment of mission-critical applications at high speed and global scale. Facing devastating floods, the Tribunal de Justiça do Rio Grande do Sul (TJRS) rapidly migrated their judicial system to AWS in three weeks, expediting their planned eight-month timeline. Check out this session from re:Invent 2024 to learn how AWS and SERPRO provided disaster response support as TJRS moved over 200 terabytes (TB) of data, 80 virtual machines (VMs), 50 integrations, and a 12TB database to the cloud despite power outages and flooding.

Nonprofits today face a big challenge: Increasing giving to drive more global impact. Bonterra, one of the world’s largest social good software companies, leverages AWS to help nonprofits get more for their missions. In this session, Bonterra shares their cloud journey, which saw them rapidly migrating from data centers to the AWS Cloud, rearchitecting applications with cloud-native services, and eliminating legacy technical debt. Watch the session to learn how adopting services like HAQM Simple Email Service (SES) and HAQM Q enabled Bonterra to drive more impact across fundraising, grant management, and strategic philanthropy.

Accelerate your migration and modernization journey

During re:Invent 2024, numerous AWS public sector customers shared their digital transformation journeys.

One of these customers, the state of Tennessee, is on a mission to enhance the worker and customer experience for all citizens by modernizing technology across programs and departments. This session brings together technology and business leaders from Tennessee to discuss the unique technological advancements, data-driven initiatives, and user-centric improvements implemented throughout the state.

Another customer, California’s Employment Development Department (EDD), administers essential benefit programs such as unemployment insurance, disability insurance, and paid family leave. Serving one of the largest and most diverse populations in the country, EDD collects and disburses billions of dollars annually. Check out these slides, which provide an overview of EDD’s modernization journey, to learn how EDD revamped benefit systems and transformed the customer and employee experience using AWS.

Lastly, watch this session to discover how you can leverage Fujitsu’s deep IT expertise and consultative approach, AWS Blu Age, and cloud technology to modernize mainframe, UNIX, midrange, and Windows systems. With Fujitsu, you can unlock AI, data-driven insights, enable business resilience, and build an agile foundation for future growth.

Conclusion

At re:Invent 2024, we learned how AWS delivers cutting-edge innovation and mission impact for government organizations including the United Nations and US Armed Forces. From enhancing citizen services to fueling the adoption of generative AI and modernizing legacy systems and infrastructure, AWS is at the forefront of the digital transformation of the public sector.

How can AWS help accelerate your government agency’s digital transformation journey? Visit AWS for government to discover how AWS can help you harness the power of the cloud to drive your mission forward.