Amazon to spend $20B on data centers in Pennsylvania, including one next
to a nuclear power plant
[June 10, 2025] By
MARC LEVY
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Amazon said Monday that it will spend $20 billion
on two data center complexes in Pennsylvania, including one it is
building alongside a nuclear power plant that has drawn federal scrutiny
over an arrangement to essentially plug right into the power plant.
Kevin Miller, vice president of global data centers at Amazon’s cloud
computing subsidiary, Amazon Web Services, told The Associated Press
that the company will build another data center complex just north of
Philadelphia.
One data center is being built next to northeastern Pennsylvania's
Susquehanna nuclear power plant, where it intends to get its power. The
other will be in Fairless Hills at a logistics campus, the Keystone
Trade Center, on what was once a U.S. Steel mill. Amazon said that data
center will get its power through the electricity grid.
At a news conference in Berwick in the shadow of the power plant, Gov.
Josh Shapiro called it the largest private sector investment in
Pennsylvania's history. Monday’s announcement, he said, is “just the
beginning” because his administration is working with Amazon on
additional data center projects in Pennsylvania.
While critics say data centers employ relatively few people and pack
little long-term job-creation punch, their advocates say they require a
huge number of construction jobs to build, spend enormous sums at area
vendors and generate strong tax revenues for local governments.
Shapiro touted the work that will keep construction trades members busy
building Amazon's data centers, the tech jobs that will be waiting for
graduates of area colleges and the millions of dollars in property taxes
that will flow to schools and local governments.
“For too long, we’ve watched as talents across Pennsylvania got hollowed
out and left behind,” Shapiro said at the news conference. “No more. Now
is our time to rebuild those communities and invest in them. This
investment in Pennsylvania starts reversing that trend.”
Pennsylvania will provide possibly tens of millions of dollars in
incentives, typically a key element of data center deals as states
compete for the large installations they hope will be an economic
bonanza.
Shapiro's administration said it will spend $10 million to pay for
training classes and facilities at schools, community colleges and union
halls to meet the skills demand for the data centers.
Amazon also will qualify for Pennsylvania’s existing sales tax exemption
on purchases of data center equipment, such as servers and routers, an
exemption that most states offer and that is viewed as a must-have for a
state to compete.
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A data center owned by Amazon Web Services, front right, is
under construction next to the Susquehanna nuclear power plant in
Berwick, Pa., on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey,
file)
 The announcements add to the
billions of dollars in Big Tech's data center cash flowing into the
state.
Since 2024 started, Amazon has committed to about $10 billion apiece
to data center projects in Mississippi, Indiana, Ohio and North
Carolina as it ramps up its infrastructure to compete with other
tech giants to meet growing demand for artificial intelligence
products.
The rapid growth of cloud computing and artificial intelligence has
meanwhile fueled demand for energy-hungry data centers that need
power to run servers, storage systems, networking equipment and
cooling systems.
The majority owner of the Susquehanna nuclear power plant, Talen
Energy, last year sold its data center and land adjacent to the
plant to Amazon for $650 million in a deal to eventually provide 960
megawatts of electricity, likely at a premium. That's 40% of the
output of one of the nation's largest nuclear power plants, or
enough to power more than a half-million homes.
Amazon is effectively gutting that data center and building its own,
larger facility on the land.
However, the power-supply arrangement between Talen and Amazon —
called a “behind the meter” connection — has been held up by the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in the first such case to come
before the agency.
For Big Tech, plugging data centers directly into a power plant can
take years off their development timelines and is a much faster
route to procuring power than connecting to the congested
electricity grid.
But it has raised questions over whether diverting power to
higher-paying customers will leave enough for others and whether
it’s fair to excuse big power users from paying fees to improve the
grid.
It’s not clear when FERC, which blocked the deal on a procedural
grounds, will decide the matter.
Already in Pennsylvania, Microsoft has a deal with the owner of the
shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear power plant to restart a reactor
under a 20-year agreement to supply its data centers in four states
with energy.
Meanwhile, the owners of what was once Pennsylvania’s biggest
coal-fired power plant say they will turn it into a $10 billion
natural gas-powered data center campus.
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