Amazon pledges $1B to data center communities, warns that local opposition threatens U.S. AI lead

What happened

The company’s new program, which it calls “Built Together,” will fund free community college, job training, energy upgrades for homes and schools, and other local projects identified by data center (a building full of computers that runs online services) communities. Announcing the commitments in a post Friday morning , Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman said local opposition to data centers — which he asserted is stoked by “misinformation and outright lies” — threatens the country’s position in the global race for AI leadership. Amazon Web Services is a cloud computing company based in Seattle.

The move responds to a growing backlash that AWS CEO Matt Garman says threatens the country's lead in AI. Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman, shown at AWS re:Invent in 2025, says local opposition to data centers threatens the U.S.

communities where it builds and operates data centers, responding to a growing backlash across the country against the tech industry’s massive AI infrastructure buildout. It comes on top of more than $1 billion that Amazon says it has given to communities over the past three years.