RIDGELAND, Miss.—Workers wearing neon yellow vests and hard hats operated machinery on a dusty, gravelly construction site in Ridgeland, Mississippi. Feet away, Gov. Tate Reeves stood on a stage under a white tent to announce that Amazon Web Services is expanding its data centers in “America’s Digital Delta” with a $13 billion investment.
“Mississippi is not attracting the industries of the future: we’re building them,” the governor said at a Thursday press conference to an audience of hundreds, including state and local lawmakers, business partners, lobbyists, industry professionals and the Mississippi Robotics Team.
Amazon already has an artificial intelligence data processing center in Ridgeland and another data center campus in nearby Canton. With the additional $12 billion, it’ll be expanding its operations in Madison County and creating 700 jobs, Reeves announced Thursday. The company is also investing $1 billion into a project in Clinton that is projected to add 100 jobs to the community.
Reeves said in total, Amazon is hoping to bring 2,000 jobs to central Mississippi. Those jobs created at the data center do not include the thousands of construction workers, electricians, utility workers and operations officials who are constructing it, the governor noted.
“Just as important are the infrastructure improvements that come along with a project of this magnitude. Developments like this bring enhancements to roads, utilities and overall capacity to benefit not only this site, but our entire community,” Ridgeland Mayor Gene McGee said on Thursday. “These are the kinds of improvements that position Ridgeland to sustain growth in future success.”
More than 80 organizations have partnered with Amazon and the State for the project.
Thursday’s expansion announcement brings Amazon’s total planned investment in the Magnolia State to $25 billion, Reeves said. This includes $3 billion in 2025 to build an AI data center in Vicksburg and $10 billion in 2024 to construct the first phase of the Madison County data centers.
“Other states are taking notice of the special things happening here in Mississippi, and they’re looking at our state, maybe for the first time, not as an afterthought, but as a blueprint—a blueprint for how to do things the right way,” Reeves said.
Amazon Partners with State Nonprofits, Schools
Every month, Mississippi nonprofit Extra Table Feeds fundraises and spends $95,000 for food and to transport 66 deliveries to food pantries across the state, executive director Martha Allen Price said on Thursday. Amazon will now take over 17 of those deliveries for free monthly, she announced.
“When we are able to save money, more Mississippians receive meals,” Price said on Thursday. Extra Table Feeds does not receive any federal funding.
As part of its work in Mississippi, Amazon has integrated training programs throughout the state in partnership with AccelerateMS, the Mississippi Development Authority, Hinds Community College and Holmes Community College. Those efforts have trained over 6,500 Mississippians and engaged with more than 1,000 leaders in education and the workforce, the company said.
Amazon has also implemented K-12 STEM programs in Madison County schools, Canton public schools and Jackson public schools that include opportunities like career awareness programs, STEM learning experience and technological workshops.
Amazon Web Services has boosted its generative artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure by building data centers across the U.S. this year. The company hosts the world’s most commonly used cloud-based service, Amazon Web Services, which millions of customers rely on.
Residents Face Ongoing Environmental Concerns
Amazon’s existing operations in Madison County have raised environmental and quality of life concerns from some residents. In Canton, the site of the tech giant’s inaugural data center campus, nearby homeowners have complained about an uptick in traffic, noise and dust around the facility since construction began two years ago.
Some residents also worry that the facility’s energy and water consumption could drive up their utility rates and deplete water resources in the area.
Amazon representatives and other project stakeholders sought to address some of these concerns at Thursday’s event, highlighting various steps that the company is taking to minimize impacts on utilities.
The tech giant has pledged to use recycled water—rather than potable water—to cool the servers at its Canton data centers, while its Ridgeland campus will only use groundwater for 30 days of the year, or only 9% of the time, explained Roger Wehner, vice president of economic development at Amazon Web Services. Additionally, the newly announced Clinton facility will operate without water altogether.
“We made a commitment when we first came on two things in particular—one was water, one was energy,” Wehner said. “We try to keep our word every step of the way.”
Amazon is also pouring millions of dollars into Mississippi’s electrical grid, and the company is required to cover all substation and transmission upgrades needed to power its data centers moving forward, Entergy Mississippi President and CEO Haley Fisackerly told reporters Thursday. These infrastructure improvements will deliver value to Entergy customers statewide, resulting in over $700 million in fuel savings, he added.
“We all depend on this grid, and we’re dealing with more adverse weather conditions,” Fisackerly said. “By bringing Amazon in … they share a greater portion of the cost, and it actually creates benefits for our customers.”
Beyond potential impacts on utilities, residents and outside groups have expressed trepidation over Amazon’s mass installation of diesel generators at its data centers. These machines, intended to supply backup power during emergencies, are a major source of noise and air pollution, releasing heat-trapping gases and chemicals that contribute to respiratory and heart conditions. The company plans to add more than 800 generators across its existing Madison County campuses, according to permit applications reviewed by the Mississippi Free Press, and the Ridgeland generators alone will be able to produce over 1.3 megawatts of power.
In Clinton, recent ordinance changes suggest the city is preparing for Amazon to install additional generators at its newest data center. On Oct. 7, 2025, the mayor and board of aldermen amended the general noise ordinance to ensure that backup generators could run uninterrupted during emergencies, according to documents shared with the Mississippi Free Press.
Clinton Mayor Will Purdie acknowledged that there will be backup generators at the Clinton site, but noted that day-to-day power will be supplied by the electrical grid.
“We are tremendously excited and grateful to Amazon for choosing to locate that facility there in Clinton,” Purdie said at Thursday’s event. “I think a lot of the things said here today should certainly address (residents’) concerns.”
