{"id":3492049,"date":"2026-10-03T18:43:57","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T18:43:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/03\/amazon-responds-to-data-center-backlash-says-it-no-longer-uses-ndas\/"},"modified":"2026-10-03T18:43:57","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T18:43:57","slug":"amazon-responds-to-data-center-backlash-says-it-no-longer-uses-ndas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/03\/amazon-responds-to-data-center-backlash-says-it-no-longer-uses-ndas\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon responds to data center backlash, says it no longer uses NDAs"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n
\n

Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman said the company has stopped using nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) in its dealings with government agencies as it seeks approval to build new data centers.<\/p>\n

Garman\u2019s statement is just one sentence in a longer blog post in which he tried to push back against widespread suspicion of data centers, and to make the case that they\u2019re actually good for communities.<\/p>\n

NDAs are a significant piece of the broader data center backlash. For example, environmental activist Erin Brockovich recently said that the number one complaint she\u2019s heard about data centers is transparency, with these projects following a common pattern: \u201cprojects announced after permits are already secured, developers who don\u2019t return calls, local officials who signed NDAs before their neighbors knew a project was being considered.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result of that backlash, New York announced a one-year moratorium on permits for large data centers, and according to Garman, there are more than 100 data center moratoriums currently being considered across the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf these measures are enacted, the U.S. could be writing its own losing ticket to this race, and the consequences would last generations,\u201d Garman claimed. \u201cAs a country, we can\u2019t afford to find ourselves in that position.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garman also attempted to puncture what he said are four big myths around data centers: that they consume too much water, that they increase electricity costs, that they emit an enormous amount of pollution, and that they don\u2019t provide any benefits to their communities.<\/p>\n

Pointing to an Amazon report about its own water usage, Garman said that \u201cdirect data center water consumption\u201d only accounts for 0.5% of all industrial water usage in the United States, \u201corders of magnitude less than golf courses, almond farming, and many other industries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nvidia recently said its new cooling system eliminates \u201cpretty much all water usage\u201d inside the data center, but those claims \u2014 like Amazon\u2019s \u2014 seem to ignore the broader water usage involved in electricity generation and chip manufacturing. Scientists have also said they need to study data centers\u2019 water and energy usage independently, since there are no federal or state requirements around how tech companies report this data. <\/p>\n

As for electricity rates, Garman said they\u2019ve only gone up in some states with large numbers of data centers, while they\u2019ve gone down or at least grown more slowly in others. And he argued, \u201cIn instances where energy rates are going up, it\u2019s primarily because the grid is old and hasn\u2019t been invested in and expanded before the demand arrived.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the other hand, an independent watchdog said recently data centers were the main culprit behind a 76% year-over-year price increase on America\u2019s largest electrical grid.<\/p>\n

When it comes to pollution \u2014 an issue that the NAACP is currently suing Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX\/xAI over \u2014 Garman complained that critics focus on the maximum amount of pollution allowed under data center permits. For example, a planned Amazon data center in Texas is permitted to release 33 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, which is more than any other power plant in the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe truth is data center generators almost never run,\u201d Garman said. \u201cThey\u2019re idle 99.9% of the time (they run roughly 10 hours per year, mostly for required maintenance testing).\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the community benefits, this is where Garman wrote, \u201cWe no longer use nondisclosure agreements with the government agencies we work with on our projects.\u201d Plus, he said, \u201cOver the past three years, Amazon has contributed more than $1 billion to communities across the U.S. in which we have a meaningful data center presence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Will this be enough to quell community suspicion? Perhaps not \u2014 Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei recently argued that the AI backlash is \u201cfundamentally a crisis of trust,\u201d where people assume governments and tech companies are always \u201ccooking up some new way to screw them over.\u201d Similarly, writer Jasmine Sun noted that when data center opponents are presented with the tech companies\u2019 arguments, their response is usually, \u201cI don\u2019t believe them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn\u2019t affect our editorial independence.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/div>\n
\n

Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman said the company has stopped using nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) in its dealings with government agencies as it seeks approval to build new data centers.<\/p>\n

Garman\u2019s statement is just one sentence in a longer blog post in which he tried to push back against widespread suspicion of data centers, and to make the case that they\u2019re actually good for communities.<\/p>\n

NDAs are a significant piece of the broader data center backlash. For example, environmental activist Erin Brockovich recently said that the number one complaint she\u2019s heard about data centers is transparency, with these projects following a common pattern: \u201cprojects announced after permits are already secured, developers who don\u2019t return calls, local officials who signed NDAs before their neighbors knew a project was being considered.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result of that backlash, New York announced a one-year moratorium on permits for large data centers, and according to Garman, there are more than 100 data center moratoriums currently being considered across the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf these measures are enacted, the U.S. could be writing its own losing ticket to this race, and the consequences would last generations,\u201d Garman claimed. \u201cAs a country, we can\u2019t afford to find ourselves in that position.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garman also attempted to puncture what he said are four big myths around data centers: that they consume too much water, that they increase electricity costs, that they emit an enormous amount of pollution, and that they don\u2019t provide any benefits to their communities.<\/p>\n

Pointing to an Amazon report about its own water usage, Garman said that \u201cdirect data center water consumption\u201d only accounts for 0.5% of all industrial water usage in the United States, \u201corders of magnitude less than golf courses, almond farming, and many other industries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nvidia recently said its new cooling system eliminates \u201cpretty much all water usage\u201d inside the data center, but those claims \u2014 like Amazon\u2019s \u2014 seem to ignore the broader water usage involved in electricity generation and chip manufacturing. Scientists have also said they need to study data centers\u2019 water and energy usage independently, since there are no federal or state requirements around how tech companies report this data. <\/p>\n

As for electricity rates, Garman said they\u2019ve only gone up in some states with large numbers of data centers, while they\u2019ve gone down or at least grown more slowly in others. And he argued, \u201cIn instances where energy rates are going up, it\u2019s primarily because the grid is old and hasn\u2019t been invested in and expanded before the demand arrived.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the other hand, an independent watchdog said recently data centers were the main culprit behind a 76% year-over-year price increase on America\u2019s largest electrical grid.<\/p>\n

When it comes to pollution \u2014 an issue that the NAACP is currently suing Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX\/xAI over \u2014 Garman complained that critics focus on the maximum amount of pollution allowed under data center permits. For example, a planned Amazon data center in Texas is permitted to release 33 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, which is more than any other power plant in the United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe truth is data center generators almost never run,\u201d Garman said. \u201cThey\u2019re idle 99.9% of the time (they run roughly 10 hours per year, mostly for required maintenance testing).\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the community benefits, this is where Garman wrote, \u201cWe no longer use nondisclosure agreements with the government agencies we work with on our projects.\u201d Plus, he said, \u201cOver the past three years, Amazon has contributed more than $1 billion to communities across the U.S. in which we have a meaningful data center presence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Will this be enough to quell community suspicion? Perhaps not \u2014 Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei recently argued that the AI backlash is \u201cfundamentally a crisis of trust,\u201d where people assume governments and tech companies are always \u201ccooking up some new way to screw them over.\u201d Similarly, writer Jasmine Sun noted that when data center opponents are presented with the tech companies\u2019 arguments, their response is usually, \u201cI don\u2019t believe them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn\u2019t affect our editorial independence.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3492050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3492049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3492049"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3492049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3492049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3492050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3492049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3492049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3492049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}