It may be flyover country to some, but to Amazon, Ohio is a place to schedule a $7.8 billion dollar investment over the next six years.
While there are no specifics as to the number of new data centers, this would be in addition to the over $6 billion spent since Amazon built the first of their seven existing Ohio data centers starting back in 2014. Amazon is considering numerous sites in the state for data center construction, but it should be noted that they recently spent $116 million to purchase 400 acres in New Albany, Ohio, near the location that Intel will be investing $20B to build their new chip fab.
Google has a continuing investment in Ohio data centers, and the Intel development is going to be collocated in the area where Google’s existing cloud hub is located. That AWS building in that same area, therefore makes a great deal of sense.
This continues the large, ongoing investment in US data centers by AWS, which has committed to invest $35 billion in Virginia and plans another $12 billion in development in Oregon. While not even touching on the AWS global development plan, this investment is accompanied by the company's recent announcement of plans to invest $12.7 billion in India over the same 6 year time frame.
This is a major investment in Ohio, where the state believes that the previous AWS data center investments have generated over $2 billion in economic benefit for Ohio, and supported more than 3,000 local secondary jobs on an average annual basis. As of 2022, AWS directly employed approximately 1000 locals for their operations.
JP Nauseef, President and CEO of JobsOhio, believes that the continued growth of AWS in the state will add to these employment numbers as well as solidify the position of Ohio as a leading location for data center development, saying, “Their newest investment creates 230 direct new jobs and an estimated 1,000 support jobs, and we look forward to building our partnership with AWS as Ohio continues to make its mark in this important sector.”
Local news was quick to hop on the story, as evidenced by contiguous reporting from NBC affiliate TV station WKYC Channel 3, covering Cleveland and Northeast Ohio, who noted that the AWS data center project "will mark the second-largest private sector company investment in Ohio's history."
