Dive Brief:
- Multinational tech giant Amazon’s cloud computing subsidiary, Amazon Web Services, will invest $10 billion in Mississippi to build two data center complexes, the company announced Jan. 25.
- AWS will build the facilities across two industrial parks in Madison County, which sits just outside of the state capital of Jackson. The project is the largest capital investment in the state’s history, according to a release from the Mississippi Development Authority.
- Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves signed the legislation finalizing the agreement on Jan. 30 that included $44 million in state incentives and said that the data centers could be at least partially open by 2027, local media outlet WJTV reported.
Dive Insight:
Since 2010, Amazon has invested $2.3 billion in Mississippi, which includes the construction of five fulfillment and sortation centers, four delivery stations, five solar farms and the state’s first utility-scale wind farm, per the company’s release. It’s also the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the state.
This record-shattering $10 billion private sector investment will create hundreds of high-tech jobs for Mississippians, Reeves said in the development authority’s release.
“Mississippi is building a business climate that is ripe for further growth, especially in the technology sector,” he said.
Data centers have been a point of interest for Amazon as it looks to bolster its own tech capabilities. Last year, in Ohio alone, the company announced two investments — one worth $7.8 billion, and another worth $3.5 billion — in data centers around the state.
In immediate construction, Amazon was also responsible for two of the largest data centers to break ground last year — the $1 billion Prime Data Center Campus in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, and the $515 million data farm in Hilliard, Ohio.
This growth comes as activity in some other sectors, like office construction, flounders. The conglomerate purchased nine office buildings in Loudoun County, Virginia, last June, but plans to tear them down to make way for more data center facilities.