Amazon—Amazon ended NDA practice for data center site negotiations with local governments and pledged $1B community investment amid transparency backlash

Facing a wave of local data-center moratoriums (over 100 under consideration nationwide), Congressional pressure (Rep. Jamie Raskin's letters demanding NDA information, bipartisan 'No Secrets for Data Centers Act'), and state-level bans on such NDAs, AWS CEO Matt Garman said on October 3, 2026 that Amazon no longer requires local officials to sign non-disclosure agreements when negotiating data center projects, following Microsoft's similar move roughly six months earlier. Amazon committed $1 billion over five years to host communities (free trade-school training centers, energy-efficiency grants for schools and homes, flexible local funding) and pledged to publish annual reports on energy use, water use, and carbon-free energy percentage. The announcement came alongside disputed environmental claims: Garman said data centers account for only 0.5% of US industrial water use and that backup generators run only ~10 hours/year, which scientists said undercounts water used in electricity generation and chip manufacturing; a planned Amazon data center in Texas is permitted to emit 33 million tons of CO2 per year, more than any other US power plant.