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HARRISBURG, Pa. -- Amazon said Monday that it volition walk $20 cardinal connected 2 information halfway complexes successful Pennsylvania, including 1 it is gathering alongside a atomic powerfulness works that has drawn federal scrutiny implicit an statement to fundamentally plug close into the powerfulness plant.
Kevin Miller, vice president of planetary information centers astatine Amazon’s unreality computing subsidiary, Amazon Web Services, told The Associated Press that the institution volition physique different information halfway analyzable conscionable northbound of Philadelphia.
One information halfway is being built adjacent to northeastern Pennsylvania's Susquehanna atomic powerfulness plant. The different volition beryllium successful Fairless Hills astatine a logistics campus, the Keystone Trade Center, connected what was erstwhile a U.S. Steel mill.
In a statement, Gov. Josh Shapiro called it the largest superior concern successful Pennsylvania's history.
The announcements adhd to the billions of dollars successful Big Tech's information halfway currency already flowing into the state.
Since 2024 started, Amazon has committed to astir $10 cardinal apiece to information halfway projects successful Mississippi, Indiana, Ohio and North Carolina arsenic it ramps up its concern successful infrastructure to vie with different tech giants to conscionable increasing request for artificial quality products.
The accelerated maturation of unreality computing and artificial intelligence has fueled request for information centers that request powerfulness to tally servers, retention systems, networking instrumentality and cooling systems.
The bulk proprietor of the Susquehanna atomic powerfulness plant, Talen Energy, announced past twelvemonth that it had sold its information halfway to Amazon for $650 cardinal successful a woody to yet supply 960 megawatts. That's 40% of the output of 1 of the nation's largest atomic powerfulness plants, oregon capable to powerfulness much than a half-million homes.
However, the statement betwixt Talen and Amazon — called a “behind the meter” transportation — has been held up by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission successful the archetypal specified lawsuit to travel earlier the agency.
It has raised questions implicit whether diverting powerfulness to higher-paying customers volition permission capable for others and whether it’s just to excuse large powerfulness users from paying for the grid.
For Big Tech, plugging energy-hungry information centers straight into a powerfulness works tin instrumentality years disconnected their improvement timelines and is simply a overmuch faster way to procuring powerfulness than having to link to the congested energy grid.
It’s not wide erstwhile FERC, which blocked the woody connected a procedural grounds, volition determine the matter, leaving successful limbo regulatory attraction of the woody and others that apt would follow.
Already successful Pennsylvania, Microsoft announced a woody with the proprietor of the shuttered Three Mile Island atomic powerfulness plant to restart the reactor nether a 20-year statement to proviso its information centers successful 4 states with energy.
Meanwhile, the owners of what was erstwhile Pennsylvania’s biggest coal-fired powerfulness plant accidental they volition crook it into a $10 cardinal earthy gas-powered information halfway campus.
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Follow Marc Levy connected X at: https://x.com/timelywriter.
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