Gov. Tate Reeves signed legislation on Tuesday that opens the door for Amazon Web Services to locate in Mississippi.
The $10 billion investment will include two hyperscale data centers in Madison County, one at the Madison County Mega Center and the other on the Costas Property west of Tougaloo College and near County Line Road in Ridgeland. The legislation allows the state to appropriate $44 million for infrastructure costs while loaning the county $215.1 million to ensure the project gets done.
“Mississippi has written another chapter for the history books,” Reeves said. “This $10 billion private sector investment is proof that Mississippi can compete against the fiercest competition in economic development and win. It really is an awesome day for our entire state, and I’m so proud we could get this project done. Something special is happening in Mississippi, and we’re not going to let it up anytime soon.”
Bill Cork, who serves as executive director of the Mississippi Development Authority, explained that landing Amazon Web Services has been in the works for nearly five years now.
“This project really first came to be about almost five years ago. The company had done a multisite competition in the state of Mississippi and looked at a variety of areas – of course, they’re chasing power and fiber – and it just wasn’t Mississippi’s time at that point, both in the evolution of the company and where it was heading but also what Mississippi’s infrastructure could offer,” Cork said.
“But the relationships remained very, very strong… This is a business where relationships really matter, and we had I think a competitive advantage on relationships. But anyway, what also helped to bring this project together is we are at the crossroads of two massive backbones of dark fiber optic cables, a pipeline that runs from Chicago to New Orleans on a north-south route and a pipeline that runs from Dallas to Atlanta and then up to Virginia connecting the intercontinental backbone of the internet.”
As part of the investment, AWS has also committed to boost its STEAM program – which stands for science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics – inside Mississippi’s K-12 schools, community colleges, and universities. Using industry-grade tools, students will have the chance to simulate what the company calls real-world scenarios. Training programs such as fiber optic fusion splicing and information infrastructure workshops will be available at institutions across the state.
“Since 2011, AWS has invested more than $108 billion in its infrastructure across the U.S. to support customers of all kinds and across all industries in their digital transformation,” Roger Wehner, AWS’ director of economic development, said in a statement. “Building on this, we are excited to expand our operations into Mississippi through this planned $10 billion investment, which will tap into the burgeoning tech sector across the state to create new, well-paying jobs and boost the state’s gross domestic product each year.”
The two data centers will create a combined 1,000 jobs with 800 of the positions being permanent jobs that include an annual salary of $70,000. The remaining 200 jobs will be given to contract employees with salaries of approximately $60,000 annually. The project’s completion is tentatively set for 2027.
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