Amazon would like you to know that if your town blocks an AI data center, you are personally handing victory to foreign adversaries and possibly tanking the entire US economy. In a blog post exceeding 3,000 words, AWS CEO Matt Garman made the case that "our nation can't afford to lose" the AI arms race, pushing back on public concerns about jobs, power demands, and the environment.

"With any change, there will be important questions raised, but there will also be misinformation and outright lies, and in the age of social media and 24/7 news, myths take hold faster than ever before," Garman wrote. He then added, without apparent irony, that "there are widespread reports of various countries intentionally seeding misinformation in the US about data centers to trick us into slowing down." So if you're skeptical of a giant server farm next door, congratulations - you may be an unwitting asset in a foreign disinformation campaign.

This urgent plea arrives as public support for AI data centers has plummeted in polls, and communities hosting them grow increasingly restive over AI safety and broader societal impacts. Garman noted that "over 100 data center moratoriums" are currently being considered across the country. "If these measures are enacted, the US could be writing its own losing ticket to this race, and the consequences would last generations."

The memo also unveils a "Data Center Commitment," a list of practices Amazon is codifying around creating jobs, preventing increases to local energy rates, and pledging to invest more than $1 billion to support neighboring communities. Amazon additionally says it no longer uses nondisclosure agreements with government agencies, following scrutiny from Democratic lawmaker Jamie Raskin, who probed tech companies over secret deals with local officials.

In an interview reported by the Wall Street Journal, Amazon chief global affairs and legal officer David Zapolsky explained the NDAs with the candor of a man caught with his hand in the cookie jar: "the industry comes from a history of secrecy and so some of that's just reflex." He added that community leaders need to share information with their constituents, and that "It just didn't make sense" to require secrecy anymore. Translation: nothing to see here, please ignore the last several years.