Amazon.com Inc.’s latest attempt to address the intensifying blowback to an unprecedented buildout of computing infrastructure: a commitment to spend more than $1 billion over the next five years on initiatives for the communities near its server farms.
Matt Garman, chief executive of the Amazon Web Services cloud unit, announced the commitment on Friday in a 3,100-word essay that mounts a broad defense of data center construction, comparing it to the establishment of the interstate highway system.
Garman said AI, which requires massive levels of computing power from data centers to run, is already transforming how businesses and governments work.
Data center development is urgently needed to help the US keep pace in a global race to develop ever more powerful tools, he said. If data center moratoriums are enacted, “the US could be writing its own losing ticket to this race, and the consequences would last generations,” Garman said.
Amazon, the largest seller of rented…
