On Friday, Amazon committed to donating more than $1 billion over the next five years to communities neighboring data centers. Amazon Web Services’ CEO Matt Garman said that communities would decide how to prioritize funds across “education, job training, energy affordability, water, and energy preservation, and local priorities.” Amazon also promised to ensure data centers wouldn’t increase power bills or wipe out local water supplies, claiming to be “water positive” by 2030.
Rolling out these commitments, Amazon seemed bent on convincing Americans that the swelling data center backlash is based on lies. Echoing Donald Trump’s claims that foreign disinformation campaigns are fueling protests, Garman urged that calls for data moratoriums must end or else American frontier AI might fall behind China’s.
However, advocates at Stand. Earth—a global nonprofit fighting for environmental protections—told Ars that Amazon is being “misleading” by spreading “corporate propaganda.” Seemingly in crisis mode as billions of dollars in data center projects have been blocked nationwide, Amazon’s promised donations represent “a flailing attempt at damage control for the harm its data center build-out has already caused.” Most problematic, Stand. Earth suggested, is Amazon’s plan to back a power plant that experts expect will become the largest source of US climate pollution.
Source: Ars Technica · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing