SEATTLE — Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) plans to invest “at least $20 billion” in future cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) innovation campuses in Pennsylvania. The Seattle-based e-commerce giant has identified Salem Township in Luzerne County and Falls Township in Bucks County as the first communities that will host these campuses, with other Pennsylvania communities also under consideration.
“I’m proud to announce that we have secured the largest private sector investment in the history of Pennsylvania,” said Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. “Pennsylvania is competing again.”
Upon completion, the campuses will house data centers with computer servers, data storage drives, networking equipment and other technology infrastructure used for cloud computing capabilities and generative AI. Specific details about the sites and construction timelines were not released.
Last week, Amazon made a similar announcement for a $10 billion data center innovation campus in Richmond County, N.C., which followed an $11 billion investment in Georgia that Amazon announced in January.
Amazon stated that the Pennsylvania investment will create at least 1,250 new jobs, as well as thousands of jobs in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) data center supply chain. The new jobs will range from data center engineers and network specialists, to engineering operations managers, security specialists and other technical roles.
In addition to these direct positions, this planned investment is expected to support thousands of local construction jobs and positions in the data center supply chain, as well as other jobs in the local communities, according to Amazon.
Since 2010, Amazon has invested $26 billion in Pennsylvania, contributing more than $26 billion to the Commonwealth’s gross domestic product (GDP) and supporting 27,000 full- and part-time jobs. In addition, Amazon’s investment in the Keystone State has accounted for the creation of 37,100 indirect jobs across various facilities, including 23 fulfillment and sortation centers and 20 last-mile delivery stations.
Earlier this year, AWS and the University of Pittsburgh established the University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences and Sports Analytics Cloud Innovation Center, which applies the AWS cloud computing capabilities to the university’s health science research.
Amazon’s stock price closed on Monday, June 9 at $216.98 per share, up from $187.06 a year ago, a nearly 16 percent increase.
— John Nelson