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If Amazon wants Americans to love data centres as much as freeways, it needs to get its argument straight
Building data centres is a race – and the US can’t lose. So stop complaining and learn to love AI infrastructure.
That’s the message at the core of a 3,000-word essay from Matt Garman, CEO of Amazon Web Services, and he suggests the anti-datacentre backlash including construction moratoriums is the result of “various countries intentionally seeding misinformation in the US about data centres to trick us into slowing down”.
Setting aside that conspiracy theory, let’s pick apart Garman’s other arguments.
Comparing data centres to highways
Garman starts his diatribe with the example of the mid-1950s highway building project, which he dutifully notes was “paid for entirely with taxpayer money”.
“The buildout of America’s modern transportation system transformed the U.S. economy and way of life, creating countless new businesses and jobs, and connecting communities in ways that reshaped how Americans lived and worked,” he notes. “Seventy years later, we’re in the midst of the largest infrastructure buildout since the highways – our digital infrastructure.”
While the motorway system did benefit Americans, much like data centres the benefits and the downsides were very unevenly spread. Entire neighbourhoods were destroyed to make way for roads, many of which carved thorough low income and minority neighbourhoods. That meant the destruction of homes and businesses, physical separation of one neighbourhood from another, and a rise in noise and pollution. Those suffering the downsides were not the ones to benefit, with one famous protest mantra of “white men’s roads through black men’s homes”.
To be fair to Garman, that does sound awfully familiar to data centres, what with the noise and other pollution, disruption to neighbourhoods, and disproportionate impact on lower-income people for the benefit of companies.
Who is paying?
Garman is also keen to point out that the data centre rollout is being paid for by private industry “without taxpayer money”, unlike those pesky socialist railroads and highways.
But wait: data centres are getting public money.
Here’s a short list. The state of Virginia gave data centres a nearly $1bn tax break in 2023. Texas did similar in 2025 via subsidies and tax exemptions. Ten states provide more than $100m in tax subsidies to such projects, according to one report.
The Good Jobs First project has tallied up state and local economic development subsidy deals given to Amazon, for warehouses, data centres and even film productions. To date, it totals $11.6bn in grants, subsidies and tax credits, including $4.3bn for a data centre project in Indiana, $817m for the same in Mississippi, and $1bn for another in Oregon.
Those states are welcome to spend their taxpayer money as they wish, and may well see benefit from handing over such funds – or failing to collect others – to encourage such investment. But it’s disingenuous of Amazon to repeatedly claim data centres do not benefit from any public money at all.
Fact-checking
Garman then tallies up a few myths vs facts, saying data centres don’t actually use that much water, aren’t driving up energy rates, don’t emit huge amounts of pollution from backup diesel generators, and that community members do get something from data centres.
#1 Water usage
This is more complicated. Some data centres are water light, others aren’t – in some places that matters, in others it doesn’t so much.
Amazon says a typical data centre uses 170,000 gallons a day, while Amazon’s average is more like 13,000 gallons. But academic studies show Google’s data centre in Council Bluffs uses 3.7 million gallons a day, and Google admitted that its average as of 2021 was 450,000 gallons.
These are some wild discrepancies. What we need is fully audited data. Then we’ll actually know. If Amazon is actually averaging 13,000 gallons a day, well done lads – now prove it via an independent audit with frequently updated data.
#2 Energy rates
It’s true that data centres aren’t the only reason US electricity prices are going up. But it’s one of them.
Saying that the grid is old so it’s not our fault we’re demanding more of it that anyone could have imagined – as Garman does – highlights the issue: the US did fall behind in infrastructure, but hyperscaler demand is causing unprecedented pressure.
Amazon isn’t responsible for the first half of that equation, but it is the second. That’s one reason why data centres are being increasingly told to source or supply their own energy, which will lead to the beneficial capacity expansion Garman describes. In the meantime… prices are going up.
#3 Pollution
Garman then argues that data centres don’t actually emit huge amounts of pollution with backup diesel generators. This feels like a strawman. No-one begrudges backup power. The argument is that the massive leap in demand for energy has doubled the amount of gas-fired power in development, climate be damned. So much for the shift to renewable energy.
#4 Community benefits
Garman’s last point is to debunk the myth that community members get “nothing” from data centres. He argues they bring taxes, economic benefits, large numbers of good jobs, and so on.
This clearly depends on the local community, as some towns surely do benefit, even if they also suffer from noise pollution and the rest at the same time.
One piece of research suggested data centres built for AI will only create a quarter of the new jobs promised by the industry, with a mere 10,000 permanent roles created by data centres in the UK by 2035. Amazon promises its projects in Madison County and Newton County will employ 1,700 people and 400 people respectively once built – let’s keep an eye to see how realistic that proves to be.
Build better data centres
If Amazon et al want to reduce backlash, the simple answer is to build better. Use renewable energy sources that they bring to the table, ensure no noise or light pollution, genuinely engage with communities, and offer real, updated, auditable stats on water and power usage, as well as job creation.
Garman admits as much, saying “there are clearly areas in which the technology and energy industries can be doing better,” and says Amazon no longer forces nondisclosure agreements on government agencies, host “open houses” with communities, and “at least meet” local sound requirements.
All improvements are welcome, but the fact it’s necessary to list them like this shows the ongoing complaints aren’t imagined. It’s a cherry picked list as well, of course.
Alongside all this, Amazon has announced a new “built together” framework to help improve the situation and counter backlash. Hopefully for the industry that does a better job improving the perception of data centres and AI infrastructure than Garman’s blog post.
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