Tech giant Amazon on Monday announced plans for a $12 billion data center complex in northwestern Louisiana, the second historic investment for the region in the past 18 months as Republican Gov. Jeff Landry seeks to leverage the artificial intelligence and cloud-computing boom to bolster the state’s economy.
The project will involve three data center campuses totaling 10 million square feet across Caddo and Bossier parishes just west of Shreveport, Louisiana — a site two hours west of where social media giant Meta’s largest global data center, a $10 billion behemoth dubbed Hyperion, is already under construction.
“This is the largest single investment by a company in the history of northwest Louisiana,” Landry told an audience at the Shreveport Municipal Auditorium as a machine onstage sprayed sparks into the air, streamers rained down and jazz music played. Landry said the Amazon project will create more than 6,200 jobs with wages more than 50 percent above average.
The Louisiana project announced Monday is among dozens of large data centers popping up in mostly rural areas across the U.S., sites chosen for access to cheap, flat land, plentiful water and, perhaps most importantly, where they can quickly get access to power. In many areas, the mad dash to erect computer-filled warehouses in the name of more jobs and tax revenue is straining relationships with communities anxious about the impact on electricity bills and the environment.
