Amazon plans to invest at least $20 billion to build out two data centers in Pennsylvania, the e-commerce and cloud computing giant announced Monday alongside Keystone State leaders.
The new data centers will be located in Salem Township alongside the Susquehanna nuclear power plant and in Falls Township on the site of a former steel mill, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) said.
“Pennsylvania workers, over decades, over centuries, have made our Commonwealth and our country safer and freer, and what we are talking about here today is yet another national security issue that Pennsylvania can lead on,” Shapiro said Monday.
“See right now, there is a battle for supremacy when it comes to AI, a battle that will be won by either the United States or China,” he continued. “I’m comforted by the fact that thanks to Amazon, the future of AI is going to run right here through the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”
The latest Amazon data centers come as tech companies race to develop AI, competing with fellow U.S. firms, as well as Chinese companies like Deep Seek.
This has spurred new interest in data center construction that extends all the way to the White House. President Trump announced the Stargate project in January, with the goal of investing $500 billion in AI infrastructure over the next four years.
However, rapid AI development has also expanded energy demands, leading major tech firms to increasingly seek out additional capacity, including in the form of nuclear energy.
Amazon has run into roadblocks from federal regulators as it has attempted to increase the power flowing to its new data center co-located with the Susquehanna nuclear plant in Pennsylvania.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in November rejected the company’s request to alter an existing agreement with the power plant to boost its capacity by 180 megawatts. The regulator upheld its decision in April.
