TechCrunch reports that Amazon Web Services chief executive Matt Garman says the company has stopped using nondisclosure agreements with the government agencies it works with on data-center projects. The sentence sits inside a longer blog post. That post tries to push back on suspicion of data centers and to argue that they are good for communities. TechCrunch does not include the full post.

[1]
A low industrial building with one gate leaf open, and a torn envelope showing a red lining on the pavement.
The gate is open, and the torn envelope has no writing. That is a company saying it no longer uses a secrecy agreement to hide a project. An illustration, not a news photograph., AI-generated illustration, not a news photograph

The article treats nondisclosure agreements as part of the backlash. It quotes environmental activist Erin Brockovich, who says the top complaint she hears is transparency: projects are announced after permits are already secured, developers do not return calls, and local officials sign nondisclosure agreements before neighbors know a project is being considered. As a result of the backlash, New York announced a one-year moratorium on permits for large data centers. Garman says more than 100 data-center moratoriums are currently being considered across the United States. He also says that if these measures are enacted, the country could be writing its own losing ticket, with consequences that last generations. That is his judgment.

[1]

On water, Garman cites an Amazon report and says direct data-center water consumption accounts for only 0.5% of industrial water use in the United States. TechCrunch writes that this figure, like a recent Nvidia claim about a new cooling system, appears to leave out water used in generating electricity and in making chips. On electricity prices, Garman says rates have risen in some states with many data centers and have fallen or grown more slowly in others, and that where rates rise it is mainly because the grid is old and was not expanded before the demand arrived. An independent watchdog, by contrast, recently said data centers were the main culprit behind a 76% year-over-year price increase on the country’s largest electrical grid. On pollution, a planned Amazon data center in Texas is permitted to release 33 million tons of carbon dioxide a year. Garman says the generators almost never run, are idle 99.9% of the time, and run roughly 10 hours a year, mostly for maintenance tests. On community money, he says Amazon has contributed more than $1 billion over three years to U.S. communities where it has a meaningful data-center presence. These figures come from different accounts. They are set side by side here, without a ruling on which one covers all water use or all power prices.

[1]

要点

  • Garman says Amazon no longer uses nondisclosure agreements with government agencies on data centers. It is one sentence in a longer post.
  • New York paused permits for large data centers for one year. Garman says more than 100 moratoriums are under consideration in the United States.
  • The 0.5% water figure, the 99.9% idle-generator claim, and the 76% price increase come from different accounts. They are left side by side.