Amazon has announced a $10 billion investment to develop a sprawling artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing campus in North Carolina, marking the latest move in an aggressive infrastructure push by global tech giants determined to lead the next phase of AI innovation.
The data center project, set for Richmond County, will become one of Amazon Web Services (AWS) largest new builds and is expected to generate at least 500 permanent high-skilled jobs while stimulating thousands more through construction, logistics, and regional service industries.
The facility will be situated in the Energy Way Industrial Park and will benefit from existing electricity infrastructure supported by Duke Energy and Pee Dee Electric.
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Amazon has committed to funding major upgrades to surrounding utilities, including water, wastewater, and fiber-optic lines. State officials confirmed these infrastructure enhancements will be covered entirely by Amazon and will not burden taxpayers. In addition to economic development, Amazon also launched the Richmond County Community Fund, seeded with an initial $150,000 to support science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and workforce development programs for local residents.
AWS described the investment as a strategic response to the rapidly growing demand for AI infrastructure.
“Generative AI is driving increased demand for advanced cloud infrastructure and compute power,” the company said in a statement. “Our investment will support the future of AI from AWS data centers in the Tar Heel State.”
The announcement underscores the intensifying competition among tech giants to build out the infrastructure needed to support the AI boom.
Amazon’s decision follows its earlier announcement of an $11 billion data center expansion in Georgia, also designed to power generative AI services and meet cloud computing demand. In parallel, Amazon has invested $8 billion in AI startup Anthropic, the developer of the Claude chatbot. It has also released its own Trainium chips and Bedrock platform to help developers train and deploy AI models, including large language models (LLMs).
Across the industry, similar infrastructure races are unfolding. Microsoft is currently building a $3.3 billion AI hub in Wisconsin and has committed at least $13 billion to OpenAI, its key AI partner. In addition to Wisconsin, Microsoft has unveiled AI-focused data center expansions in Iowa, Texas, and Finland, responding to heightened global demand for generative tools across industries.
Google has pledged $4 billion to expand its data center operations in North Carolina, including a facility in Lenoir that will serve as a cornerstone for its AI and cloud computing services. Google has also expanded its AI offerings through its Gemini model and Google Cloud platform, contributing to growing infrastructure needs.
Meta, meanwhile, has committed over $800 million to expand its Temple, Texas, data center and has retooled operations in Nebraska and Ohio to support compute-heavy AI workloads. Even Apple, typically more reserved about its AI ambitions, has invested more than $1 billion to expand its data centers in Iowa, signaling its growing interest in AI and on-device machine learning technologies.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has described generative AI as a “once-in-a-lifetime type of business opportunity,” explaining why the company has earmarked up to $100 billion this year in capital expenditures—most of it directed at AI and cloud development.
North Carolina officials say the new Richmond County data center is expected to enhance the state’s role in the national tech ecosystem and help attract more AI-driven businesses and talent. Although Amazon has yet to specify a timeline for the facility’s construction, operations are expected to begin in phases over the next several years.
Beyond job creation, the investment signifies a broader economic transformation. Data centers are emerging as critical infrastructure in the global AI race, providing the computational backbone required to train and deploy AI models at scale. Unlike traditional IT infrastructure, these centers must support extremely high-performance computing environments, relying on powerful chips, high-speed connectivity, and sophisticated cooling systems to manage the heat generated by dense clusters of processors.
Industry analysts view this AI infrastructure surge as a defining phase in the next digital era. They believe is not just about data storage anymore but a new industrial revolution powered by AI, and whoever builds the best infrastructure wins.
Amazon’s latest announcement signals that the race to lead the AI future encompasses data and energy infrastructure, and tech giants are in a race to build it.