Amazon To Spend $8B Building Data Centers In Ohio
Amazon, as it pulls back on its warehouse and office presence across the country, is ramping up its data center investment.
The tech giant said it will spend close to $8B on an expansion of its cloud computing subsidiary, Amazon Web Services, in Ohio. The company plans to deploy the investment by 2030 to develop additional data centers, which would employ thousands of construction workers and hundreds of permanent employees, AWS Director of Economic Development Roger Wehner wrote in a post on the company's website Monday.
Amazon said it has invested $6.3B into the state over the last seven years with the construction of data centers in Franklin and Lickting counties. The $7.8B AWS plans to invest would be the second-largest private sector investment ever in Ohio, following Intel’s $20B chip plant investment last year, Axios reported.
But the Ohio plan isn't even the largest investment AWS has announced this year.
Earlier this year, AWS agreed to invest $35B in new data center campuses in Virginia by 2040. Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office announced the funding, with the administration saying the new facilities will create at least 1,000 jobs. The governor’s office also released a proposed expansion of Virginia’s incentive program for data centers that, pending legislative approval, could net the cloud computing giant more than $100M in cash grants.
The exact site for the Ohio center expansion has not been announced — site selection will be decided at a later date, the company said.
"Amazon is already one of the largest private-sector employers in Ohio, and the company's continued growth here further cements Ohio as the heart of our nation's technology and innovation," Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said in a statement. "As more of the world relies on cloud computing, this investment will build on Amazon's current infrastructure in Ohio to help new and existing businesses grow, allow residents to securely connect to friends and family, and provide access to online educational resources and entertainment."
Amazon's commitment to further spending on data centers stands in stark contrast to its real estate spending in other parts of its business.
It halted its rollout of Amazon Fresh grocery stores earlier this year, which led at least one landlord to file a lawsuit against it. It is also reducing its office spend, letting two office leases in Seattle expire, pausing construction on the second phase of its second headquarters in Northern Virginia and backing down from plans to expand in Manhattan. After helping to fuel a huge boom in warehouse construction during the pandemic, it has also cut back on its logistics network since admitting last year it grew too fast.
