Amazon Web Services (AWS) has announced an investment of up to $50bn to expand its AI and supercomputing infrastructure for US government agencies. This will add some 1.3 GW of computing capacity for government customers by building data centres with advanced compute and networking technologies and will give federal agencies access to AWS’s AI services. The investment supports the priorities outlined in the Administration’s July 2025 AI Action Plan, the company said.
“Our investment in purpose-built government AI and cloud infrastructure will fundamentally transform how federal agencies leverage supercomputing,” said AWS CEO Matt Garman. “We’re giving agencies expanded access to advanced AI capabilities that will enable them to accelerate critical missions from cybersecurity to drug discovery. This investment removes the technology barriers that have held government back and further positions America to lead in the AI era.”
Amazon has signed the Large Energy Users Pledge, supporting the goal of at least tripling global nuclear capacity by 2050. It is working with Washington state utility Energy Northwest and technology developer X-energy on plans to build up to 12 small modular reactors (SMRs) near Energy Northwest’s Columbia Generating Station, and has partnered with Talen Energy Corporation for the long-term supply of electricity from the Susquehanna NPP in Pennsylvania to support AWS data centres.
The announcement “highlights AWS’s position as the leader in government cloud computing, supporting more than 11,000 government agencies,” Amazon said. “AWS’s proven commitment to large-scale government innovation spans over a decade, marked by several industry-first achievements.” These include:
- Launch of AWS GovCloud (US-West) in 2011, becoming the first cloud provider to build infrastructure specifically for government security and compliance requirements;
- Introduction in 2014 of AWS Top Secret-East, the first air-gapped commercial cloud accredited to support classified workloads;
- Launch in 2017 of AWS Secret Region, the first cloud provider accredited across all US government data classifications including Unclassified, Secret, and Top Secret; and
- Expansion in 2018-2025 of government cloud infrastructure with AWS GovCloud (US-East), AWS Top Secret-West, and AWS Secret-West Regions.
“AWS’s experience building infrastructure at all scales and providing comprehensive security, compliance, and governance tools for controlled unclassified and classified data allows federal agencies to focus on mission outcomes rather than managing complex, on-premises systems,” Amazon concluded.
However, according to a report in Wired, more than 1,000 Amazon employees have anonymously signed an open letter warning that the company’s “all-costs-justified, warp-speed approach to AI development” could cause “staggering damage to democracy, to our jobs, and to the earth”.
Four members of Amazon Employees for Climate Justice told Wired they began asking workers to sign the letter in October. After reaching their initial goal, the group published the job titles of the Amazon employees who signed, and disclosed that more than 2,400 supporters from other organisations, including Google and Apple, had also joined in.
Backers inside Amazon include high-ranking engineers, senior product leaders, marketing managers, and warehouse staff spanning many divisions of the company. A senior engineering manager with over 20 years at Amazon said they signed because they believe a manufactured “race” to build the best AI has empowered executives to trample workers and the environment.
“The current generation of AI has become almost like a drug that companies like Amazon obsess over, use as a cover to lay people off, and use the savings to pay for data centres for AI products no one is paying for,” said an employee, who asked to remain anonymous fearing retaliation from the company.
AI systems demand significant power, which has forced utility companies to turn to coal plants and other carbon-emitting sources of energy to support the data centre expansion. The open letter demands that Amazon abandon carbon fuel sources at its data centres, bar its AI technologies from being used to carry out surveillance and mass deportation, and stop forcing employees to use AI in their work. “We, the undersigned Amazon employees, have serious concerns about this aggressive rollout during the global rise of authoritarianism and our most important years to reverse the climate crisis,” the letter states.
Two Amazon employees said executives are minimising problems with the company’s internal AI tools. Some engineers are under pressure to use AI to double their productivity or risk losing their jobs, according to a software development engineer. In October, a surge of workers began signing the letter after Amazon announced it would be cutting about 14,000 jobs to better meet the demands of the AI era. Amazon employed nearly 1.58m people in September, down from over 1.6m at the end of 2021.
