Amazon will invest $20 billion in two data center campuses in Pennsylvania, including one next to the Susquehanna nuclear power plant, in what Gov. Josh Shapiro called the largest private-sector investment in the state's history. The announcement on Monday highlights the tech giant's growing appetite for energy-intensive infrastructure to support its artificial intelligence and cloud computing operations.
Kevin Miller, vice president of global data centers at Amazon Web Services, said one of the centers will be located in Fairless Hills at the Keystone Trade Center, while the other is being built adjacent to the Susquehanna facility in Berwick, northeastern Pennsylvania.
At a news conference near the nuclear plant, Shapiro said the project will generate significant tax revenue and support thousands of construction jobs. "For too long, we've watched as talents across Pennsylvania got hollowed out and left behind," Shapiro said. "No more. Now is our time to rebuild those communities and invest in them."
Amazon's investment comes as the company accelerates its data center development across the U.S. The company has committed about $10 billion each to projects in Mississippi, Indiana, Ohio, and North Carolina in 2024 alone. The surge reflects the industry's race to meet surging demand for AI-driven computing, which requires vast power and server capacity.
The Berwick data center is at the center of a contentious energy arrangement. Talen Energy, majority owner of the Susquehanna plant, announced last year that it had sold the associated data center to Amazon for $650 million. The deal would eventually provide Amazon with up to 960 megawatts of power-approximately 40% of the plant's output and enough to power more than 500,000 homes.
The agreement involves a "behind the meter" setup that allows Amazon to draw electricity directly from the power plant, bypassing the regional grid. However, the arrangement has drawn scrutiny from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which blocked the deal on procedural grounds, raising concerns about fairness and grid integrity.
Critics argue that diverting energy to high-paying customers like Amazon could strain supply for others and challenge the foundational principles of shared grid access. The case marks the first of its kind before FERC, with the outcome expected to set precedent for similar deals.
Amazon is expected to benefit from Pennsylvania's existing sales tax exemption on purchases of data center equipment, a common incentive states offer to lure large tech projects. In addition, Shapiro's administration said it would allocate $10 million to fund technical training at schools, community colleges, and union halls to meet the labor demands of the expanding data center sector.
Meanwhile, Amazon isn't the only tech giant pursuing atomic energy for data center operations in Pennsylvania. Microsoft recently signed a 20-year deal to revive the dormant Three Mile Island nuclear plant to power its facilities across four states. Separately, developers plan to convert the site of the state's largest former coal-fired power plant into a $10 billion natural gas-fueled data center complex.
