• Amazon’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing unit is making the largest capital investment in Indiana’s history.
  • AWS plans to invest about $11 billion to build a new data centre in St. Joseph County, Indiana.
  • Amazon will also provide up to $7 million in funding to support state and local communities in building road infrastructure around the company’s planned development.

The largest capital investment in Indiana’s history

Amazon’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing unit is making the largest capital investment in Indiana’s history. See also: TSMC weighs AI chip price rises amid shortages.

AWS plans to invest about $11 billion to build a new data centre in St. Joseph County, Indiana, creating at least 1,000 new jobs. The planned investment is part of what Amazon says is a long-term commitment to the state, including $21.5 billion since 2010. The e-retailer’s projects in Indiana include the opening of four solar farms and a wind farm, and it says its investments have created 26,000 full – and part-time jobs there. See also: AI workload volatility raises data centre power waste.

Also read: Amazon expands cashier-less ‘Just Walk Out’ technology

Support local development

Amazon will also provide up to $7 million in funding to support state and local communities in building road infrastructure around the company’s planned development.

In addition, the company will launch a fund to support a range of STEAM awareness and learning opportunities in the K-12 school system and partner with local education and workforce development agencies to provide a range of education programs and skills training programs. This builds on AWS ‘existing commitment to provide free cloud skills training to 29 million people worldwide by 2025. See also: OpenAI IPO turns compute procurement into a market test.

The new AWS data centre commitment in Indiana is Amazon’s fifth major investment in its cloud computing business in the past 15 months. In January 2024, the company said it would invest $10 billion to build two data centre complexes in Madison County, Mississippi. See also: Pure DC brings German biomethane to Dublin data centre.

In July 2023, the company said it would invest $7.8 billion by 2030 to expand its data centre operations in Ohio. In addition, Amazon said in May 2023 that it would commit to invest $12.7 billion to expand its cloud infrastructure in India by 2030, and in January 2023 that it would invest $35 billion to expand its data centre in Virginia by 2040. See also: Meta weighs equity raise for AI buildout.

Roger Wehner, Director of Economic Development at AWS, said: “AWS is unwavering in its commitment to supporting our customers and helping drive digital transformation, which is reflected through our infrastructure investments across the United States. “Building on this foundation, we are excited to expand our presence in Indiana through the $11 billion investment in this plan, which will create many high-paying jobs and capitalise on the state’s thriving tech sector, while making a significant contribution to the state’s growing economy.” See also: IBM and Google scale enterprise AI agents.