AWS CEO Matt Garman said Amazon has stopped using nondisclosure agreements with government agencies as it seeks approval to build new data centers, in a blog post pushing back against widespread suspicion of data center projects.
NDAs are a significant piece of the data center backlash. Environmental activist Erin Brockovich said transparency is the top complaint, with projects announced after permits secured and local officials signing NDAs before neighbors knew about projects.
New York announced a one-year moratorium on permits for large data centers. Garman said more than 100 data center moratoriums are being considered across the United States, warning the U.S. could lose the AI infrastructure race.
Garman attempted to address four myths: water consumption (claiming direct data center water use is 0.5% of U.S. industrial usage), electricity costs (mixed state outcomes), pollution (generators idle 99.9% of the time, running ~10 hours/year for maintenance), and community benefits.
On community benefits, Garman wrote: “We no longer use nondisclosure agreements with the government agencies we work with on our projects.” Amazon contributed more than $1 billion to U.S. communities with data center presence over three years.
Critics remain skeptical. An independent watchdog said data centers were the main culprit behind a 76% year-over-year price increase on America’s largest electrical grid. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called the AI backlash a “crisis of trust.”
Nvidia said its new cooling system eliminates most in-data-center water usage, but scientists note broader water and energy usage in electricity generation and chip manufacturing lacks federal reporting requirements.