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On October 2, 2026, Amazon released the "Data Center Commitment" and called on the public to support AI data center projects. Amazon AWS CEO Matt Garman published a blog post of more than 3,000 words, warning that if localities pass data center bans, the United States could lose out in economic and national security competition; the blog stated that more than 100 data center bans are being considered across the country. The commitment proposes creating jobs, preventing local electricity price increases, and investing more than $1 billion to support communities around data centers. Amazon also said it will no longer sign confidentiality agreements with government agencies; previously, Democratic lawmaker Jamie Raskin had launched an investigation into secret agreements between tech companies and local officials.
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AWS CEO responds to data center controversy: no longer using NDAsDevelopments
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- Source:The Verge AI
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Oct 4
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AWS CEO responds to data center controversy: no longer using NDAs
Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman said in a blog post that the company no longer uses non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) when partnering with government agencies to build data centers. He also rebutted four claims about data centers—that they consume too much water, drive up electricity prices, cause serious pollution, and bring no benefit to communities—saying that direct water use by data centers accounts for only 0.5% of U.S. industrial water use, that backup generators sit idle 99.9% of the time, and that over the past three years Amazon has invested more than $1 billion in U.S. communities where it has data centers.
Oct 2
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