In brief
- Amazon is investing $10 billion in North Carolina to build data centers supporting AI infrastructure, creating at least 500 high-skilled jobs.
- The company is also reportedly developing humanoid robots for delivery tasks, testing them in a new “humanoid park” at its San Francisco office.
- An expert told Decrypt the scale of Amazon’s investment highlights how rising infrastructure costs risk putting AI innovation solely in the hands of Big Tech.
Amazon announced on Wednesday that it is committing $10 billion to build new data centers in North Carolina as part of its effort to expand artificial intelligence and cloud computing infrastructure.
The investment is expected to anchor new compute-intensive workloads and help scale Amazon’s capacity to support businesses building with AI, the company said in a statement.
“Amazon’s investment is among the largest in state history and will bring hundreds of good-paying jobs and an economic boost to Richmond County,” North Carolina Governor Josh Stein said.
The $10 billion investment is part of Amazon’s push to compete with other tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and Meta in building the infrastructure needed to support large-scale AI models.
The company said the funds “will support the future of AI from AWS data centers in the Tar Heel State,” creating at least 500 high-skilled jobs in the process.
As part of the new buildout, Amazon will fund technician training programs at community colleges, STEM education in K-12 schools, and career pathways in fiber broadband infrastructure.
It also launched a $150,000 Richmond County Community Fund to support local projects in workforce development, sustainability, and public health.
“The expansion of AI infrastructure is positive news for the industry, but it highlights a key problem of this industry: cost,” Leo Fan, co-founder of blockchain-based AI infrastructure firm Cysic, told Decrypt.
“An investment of $10 billion demonstrates the high cost of building, expanding, and maintaining AI infrastructure,” Fan said. “This prices out smaller-scale developers or companies that may not have the funds to access the infrastructure and hardware needed to provide the necessary computing power, disincentivising innovation.”
Fan said the investment brings economic benefits but warned it could lead to “the stronger concentration of all innovative AI work in the hands of Big Tech,” which he believes could stall broader innovation.
Amazon Builds ‘Humanoid Park’
The company is developing AI software for humanoid robots that could eventually handle delivery tasks, according to a report by The Information, citing an unnamed source.
Amazon has reportedly built a “humanoid park,” an indoor obstacle course inside one of its San Francisco offices, where the robots will be tested.
While the company hasn’t commented publicly, Amazon allegedly plans to use third-party hardware during early trials.
“Amazon’s move validates what the crypto-AI space has been building towards: permissionless intelligence backed by powerful infrastructure,” Abhay, founder and CEO of DappLooker AI told Decrypt.
Amazon’s AI ambitions have also extended into media, with the company finalizing a multi-year licensing deal last Thursday with The New York Times to bring its journalism, recipes, and sports content to Alexa and its proprietary AI models.
Edited by Sebastian Sinclair
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