Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) said Monday it will invest $12B to build its first data center facilities in Louisiana to fuel its cloud computing and AI operations.
Hyperscalers in the U.S. are battling for dominance and are pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into data center infrastructure to increase their compute capacity, which is crucial to power AI.
Amazon stood out on Wall Street after it announced it would spend up to $200B this year predominantly in its AWS unit due to very high demand for AI workloads.
Behemoths like Google (GOOG) (GOOGL) doubled their spending budget to $175B and $185B for the year, and Meta Platforms (META) raised its capex by 73%-75% to $115B and $135B, mostly to construct their AI infrastructure.
The company’s move to invest in Louisiana comes almost a year later and closely mimics rival Meta’s initiative, which is building its biggest data center in the U.S. state.
Louisiana has become a hotbed for AI infrastructure projects due to significant tax benefits, low electricity rates, and a reliable power grid.
Data center investments have made up for more than a third of the $61B the state has secured in capital investments in 2025.
Amazon said its investment will create about 540 on-site new jobs and support an additional 1,700 in the community overall. The company will break ground on the project in the coming weeks.