Amazon to invest $11B for Indiana data center

NEW CARLISLE, Ind. — Amazon’s cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services, plans to invest $11 billion to build a data center in northern Indiana that will create at least 1,000 jobs, state and company officials announced Thursday.

Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb called the project planned near the town of New Carlisle, about 15 miles west of South Bend, “the largest capital investment announcement in Indiana’s history.”

“This significant investment solidifies Indiana’s leadership position in the economy of the future and will undoubtedly have a positive ripple effect on the town of New Carlisle, the north-central region and the state of Indiana for years to come,” he said.

The announcement from Holcomb’s office and AWS did not include a timeline for the data center campus in St. Joseph County, which abuts the Michigan state line.

But Carl Baxmeyer, president of the county Board of Commissioners, said in the news release that it would be built “over the next decade” at the Indiana Enterprise Center, which is just east of New Carlisle, and “will be a major employment center for all of northern Indiana.”

The AWS data center would contain computer servers, data storage drives, networking equipment “and other forms of technology infrastructure used to power cloud computing capabilities, and generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies,” according to the news release.

Roger Wehner, AWS director of economic development, said the data center “will create numerous well-paying job opportunities and tap into the state’s burgeoning tech sector.”

The state has committed to a variety of tax credits for the project.