Amazon announced Friday it will invest more than $1 billion over the next five years in communities that host its data centers across the United States.
NewsWeek reports that Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman unveiled the program, called “Built Together,” saying it would add to money the company already spends in those communities. “Add more than $1 billion over the next five years to what we’re already doing, with communities in the driver’s seat to determine what’s most useful for them across education, job training, energy affordability, water and energy preservation, and local priorities,” Garman said.
The program has three parts. One funds community college courses and vocational training in fields such as electrical engineering, heating and cooling systems, IT, healthcare and manufacturing. Another offers grants for energy and water efficiency improvements in homes, schools and public buildings, covering insulation, heating systems, batteries and solar installations. The third funds projects chosen in consultation with local officials, nonprofits and residents.
Breitbart News recently reported than $68 billion in data center projects have been delayed or scrapped by widespread opposition from every part of the political spectrum:
The projects, tracked by Data Center Watch, a project of the AI intelligence company 10a Labs, made up more than half of all new large-scale developments the group monitored during that period. Data Center Watch’s lead analyst, Miquel Vila, said opposition to the industry is broadening. “New groups continue to emerge, opposition is appearing across a wide range of states and jurisdictions, and online petition signatures continue to grow,” he said.
The numbers back that up. Data Center Watch counted 843 opposition groups spread across 49 states; Hawaii is the only state without one. About 30 statehouses have introduced or adopted rules covering data center siting, electricity use or water consumption. In Tennessee, a petition against a single data center project drew more than 500,000 signatures on Change.org, more than a third of all signatures collected on the platform that quarter, according to Data Center Watch.
The announcement came three days after a White House meeting attended by President Donald Trump and technology executives, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Trump has backed the expansion of data centers as part of an AI rivalry with China, even as some members of his own party have expressed hesitation. In an August post on Truth Social, Trump wrote: “The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor.” He added, “China could not be happier with this anti Data Center movement.”
Garman pushed back Friday against criticism that data centers raise energy rates, consume vast quantities of water, generate significant pollution and provide few benefits to the communities around them. Amazon called those claims “myths.”
AI data centers and the integration of this technology is changing the political landscape. Breitbart News social media director Wynton Hall has written his New York Times bestseller Code Red: The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI to serve as the definitive guide on how the MAGA movement can create positions on AI that benefit humanity without handing control of our nation to the leftists of Silicon Valley or allowing the Chinese to take over the world.
Read more at NewsWeek here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of AI, free speech, and online censorship.