It takes quite a pivot to switch from being the largest developer of mega-warehouses in the U.S. to pouring billions of dollars into new data centers, but Amazon clearly has the resources to do both.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is investing $10B to build two data center campuses in Madison County, MS, in what state officials say will be the largest single capital investment in the history of Mississippi.
The commitment in the Magnolia State is the fourth data center mega-investment AWS has announced over the past twelve months, including a $35B data processing growth pipeline in Virginia and $7.8B earmarked for Ohio data centers.
Amazon’s data center largesse isn’t limited to the U.S. In May, the tech giant disclosed it would spend nearly $12B to expand its cloud infrastructure in India.
In a deal with the Madison County Economic Development Authority, AWS will develop data center hubs at two Mississippi industrial parks in the Canton area. Mississippi legislators approved a $44M incentive package, most of which will be earmarked for workforce training grants.
They also authorized Madison County to borrow $215M from the state to pay for infrastructure improvements including roads, water and sewer systems. The loans to Madison County will be paid back through fee-in-lieu agreements with Apple. Amazon has invested $2.3B in Mississippi since 2010, including five fulfillment and sortation centers, four delivery stations, five solar farms, a wind farm and a Whole Foods market.
Amazon suffered a setback earlier this month to its $6B project to expand Northern Virginia’s data center hub into King George County, which sits between Washington, DC and Richmond.
Amid growing political opposition to data center sprawl in Virginia, the King George County Board of Supervisors reversed its approval of tax incentives for Amazon’s deal with Utility Birchwood Power Partners to develop a 7.5M SF data center campus on the site of the decommissioned Birchwood power plant.
The supervisors now say they want to renegotiate the terms of the incentives for the project. The head of the board suggested that the return on the investment might not be enough to justify the use of public land for the project.
Plans for the data center were filed in July and called for the construction of data centers in eight buildings encompassing 4M SF, including a pair of electrical substations, with a full build out to 7.5M SF to be completed over 15 years.
