AWS chief Garman says Amazon has dropped NDAs with local governments on data-center approvals

In an October 3 blog post responding to mounting community opposition, AWS CEO Matt Garman said Amazon no longer uses nondisclosure agreements with agencies that approve its data-center projects, and argued the facilities use about 0.5% of U.S. industrial water and run backup generators roughly 10 hours a year. More than 100 moratoriums are under consideration across the U.S., New York has frozen permits for a year, and a planned Texas site is permitted for 33 million tons of CO2 annually. Amazon says it has put over $1 billion into host communities over three years. Siting transparency is becoming a gating factor on new compute capacity.