Amazon makes vow to data center towns

Amazon.com Inc on Friday pledged more than US$1 billion over five years for US communities that host its data centers, the latest tech giant seeking to win over residents increasingly hostile to the artificial intelligence (AI)-fueled construction boom.

The Built Together program, unveiled by Amazon Web Services (AWS) chief Matt Garman in a 3,000-word blog post, would fund free community college degrees and trades training as well as energy-efficiency upgrades for schools and homes.

The company also announced a Data Center Commitment, promising that its facilities would not drive up local electricity bills and that it would publish annual figures on energy and water use.

An aerial view shows an Amazon Web Services data center adjacent to single-family homes in Stone Ridge, Virginia, on Aug. 12.

Photo: AFP

Garman said AWS would stop using nondisclosure agreements with government agencies on its projects, a practice that has become a major flashpoint for the movement opposing data centers.

Microsoft Corp made a similar move in March, the first major tech firm to do so.

Garman cast the buildout as a national security imperative on par with the 1950s interstate highway system.

He warned that with more than 100 local moratoriums under consideration nationwide, the US “could be writing its own losing ticket” in the AI race and that “the consequences would last generations.”

He also took aim at what he called myths about data centers, disputing as false arguments that they drive up power costs, deplete water supply and cause pollution from diesel fumes. Citing “widespread reports,” Garman said some countries were deliberately seeding misinformation in the US to slow construction — an argument also made by US President Donald Trump’s administration.

Disinformation researchers and fact-checkers say such claims overstate the role of foreign influence campaigns in a grassroots movement that spans the political spectrum and nearly every US state.

Trump, a vocal champion of the buildout, has warned that communities rejecting the facilities would “end up being backwards and poor.”

Amazon’s rivals have made similar overtures. In January, Microsoft pledged to fully cover its data centers’ power costs and stop requesting local tax breaks, and OpenAI promised that its Stargate data centers would not raise local electricity prices.

In March, Amazon, Google, Meta Platforms Inc, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle Corp and SpaceXAI signed a White House pledge to provide their own power for new data centers and pay for any grid upgrades they require.