As the deal to land Amazon Web Services was in the making, rumors swirled that the project would end up creating more jobs and result in a higher investment from AWS as it moves into Mississippi. Now, those rumors have been confirmed.
During a panel discussion at Millsaps College last week, AWS economic development director Roger Wehner told attendees that the $10 billion investment will end up being march larger with more jobs being created than initially projected.
“We were lucky to find Mississippi,” Wehner said, per a report from The Clarion-Ledger. “Let me make one thing clear. All of the news articles say we are going to invest $10 billion. That’s actually not true. That is our minimum public commitment. We are going to invest more than $10 billion. Rest assured it will be tens of billions of dollars.”
The deal, which the door was opened for through a special session earlier this year, is set to include two hyperscale data centers in Madison County, one at the Madison County Mega Center and the other on the Costas Property west of Tougaloo College near County Line Road in Ridgeland. Legislation passed by both chambers and signed by Gov. Tate Reeves appropriated $44 million for infrastructure costs while loaning the county $215.1 million to ensure the project gets done.
Wehner, who helped initiate conversations for the project five years ago when Mississippi’s infrastructure was not quite ready to chase power and fiber at the time, informed the audience that more than 1,000 jobs will be created and as initial construction begins, there’s plenty of room to further invest at both locations but especially the one in Ridgeland.
“There won’t be this flurry of manufacturing and then construction jobs that go away,” Wehner continued. “We will build on both sites simultaneously as needed as we go along. That means we are continuously under construction. So, the thousands of construction jobs. There will be thousands of construction jobs and billions of dollars that will be invested in your community is the No. 1 benefit of us going to a community. We literally will drive a big segment of the economy … This money will ripple through the local economy.”
Construction at the two sites, which are each over 750 acres, will go on for the next five to seven years, according to Wehner. Along with the capabilities that go along with its hyperscale data centers, AWS has also promised to invest in the local community and within schools.
