Amazon vows US$1 billion for data centre towns, decries ‘myths’

An Amazon Web Services data centre adjacent to single-family homes in Stone Ridge, Virginia, US. Tech giants are seeking to win over residents increasingly hostile to an AI-driven data centre construction boom.

SAN FRANCISCO - Amazon on Oct 2 pledged more than US$1 billion (S$1.3 billion) over five years for US communities that host its data centres, the latest tech giant seeking to win over residents increasingly hostile to the AI-fuelled construction boom.

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

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

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 centres.

Microsoft 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 United States “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 centres, 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 United States to slow construction – an argument also made by the Trump 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.

President Donald 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 centres’ power costs and stop requesting local tax breaks, and OpenAI promised that its Stargate data centres would not raise local electricity prices.

In March, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Oracle and xAI signed a White House pledge to provide their own power for new data centres and pay for any grid upgrades they require. AFP