Amazon CEO points to Netflix as data centre backlash grows
Matt Garman says Amazon must be 'more upfront' about data center benefits as public opposition grows
You almost certainly used a data centre today. Yet in a recent Fox News survey, 71% of registered voters said they oppose building one in their area to support AI. AWS CEO Matt Garman thinks that gap is Amazon's to close and says the company needs to be "more upfront" about what AWS data centres already do for daily life.
Speaking on the "A16z Show" podcast, Garman said that if you ask a community whether it wants to give up Netflix, the answer is no. His point is that Netflix depends on the same kind of facilities Americans increasingly oppose.
That dependence runs deep. Netflix moved to the cloud after a 2008 disruption left it unable to ship DVDs for three days, and its 2025 annual report says it runs "the vast majority of our computing on AWS."
Garman also argues that Amazon's buildings help local tax bases. Residents might change their minds, he says, if told their tax bill was $5,000 lower than it would otherwise be.
Garman, in a post dated October 2, stated that moratoriums in relation to data centres may cost the US the race for AI, likening the initiative to the building of the Interstate Highway system. More than 100 moratoriums at the local level are reportedly being considered.
It was reported by Business Insider Japan that AWS cancelled its plan to build a 2.4 million square foot data centre in Calvert County, Maryland, in August due to opposition from locals. Two weeks later, the commission of the county passed a six-month moratorium on new data centre projects.
The response from Amazon is in the form of four commitments to its data centres, such as protection of electricity costs for localities, investment in jobs, abandonment of any non-disclosures with the governments, and building efficiently.
The programme associated with this commitment is titled "Built Together" and includes over $1 billion in five years for education, job training, and energy affordability in data centre communities.
The critics respond by saying that the highway analogy forgets who built the highways.
