Amid the global cloud giants' arms race to expand computing power, Amazon has once again made a significant bet. On Monday local time, Amazon announced plans to invest $12 billion (approximately 82.935 billion RMB) in building a new data center campus in Louisiana. This is not only a major infrastructure investment in the state's history but also a key move for Amazon to strengthen its core competitiveness in artificial intelligence and cloud computing.

AIbase learned that the project will be located in the Caddo Parish and Bossier Parish in northwestern Louisiana. As a major employer in the area, the center is expected to create 540 full-time jobs and indirectly generate about 1,700 supporting jobs, covering fields such as electricians, HVAC, and security. Prior to this, Amazon had revealed that its capital expenditure budget for 2026 was very high, aiming to maintain its leading position in the AI era through large-scale data center construction and self-developed chips.

However, this massive expansion plan also faces considerable social pressure. Due to the fact that super-large data centers are notorious "power guzzlers" and "water hogs," local residents have concerns about resource consumption and environmental impact. In response, Amazon has clearly stated that it has reached an agreement with the local power company to bear all related energy infrastructure costs. In addition, the center will use natural air cooling technology and commit to using only locally surplus water, even planning to invest 4 billion dollars to upgrade the local public water facilities to alleviate community concerns.

Currently, major players including Microsoft, Google, and Meta are increasing their investments in such "super factories." AIbase believes that although Wall Street has taken a cautious stance toward Amazon's heavy investments recently, the arms race in foundational infrastructure has become inevitable. Through its partnership with Stack Infrastructure, Amazon is trying to meet the demands of AI model operations while balancing environmental costs through technological innovation, exploring a sustainable path for expansion.