Amazon announced June 9 that it’s spending $20 billion on data centers in Pennsylvania, including one next to a nuclear power plant. Gov. Josh Shapiro claims this “investment in Pennsylvania” will “rebuild” our “communities.”

While some media lauded the effort, it’s up to the rest of us to cut through the headlines.

This news and the reaction to it left me with a few questions, the first of which: What is the difference between investing in Pennsylvania and investing in Pennsylvanians?

When I read last year that Three Mile Island, the site of the worst accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant history, was reopening to power Microsoft data centers, I was deeply concerned.

Living in Marietta, a borough of less than 3,000 people nestled 13 miles downriver from TMI, in a lot of ways is like going back in time. We pay our trash and sewer bills in person at the same municipal office building where we vote and where borough council meetings take place. Taking care of our little town and our neighbors is a point of pride here.

What are these data centers going to do to communities like ours?

I am admittedly technologically behind most other millennials. I dream of becoming a Luddite in retirement — assuming we don’t all have to work until we die. However, my skepticism of artificial intelligence is not entirely driven by my experience as a teenager in the early aughts, heeding the warnings of Will Smith in I, Robot and Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence.

The truth is, Big Tech’s AI-fueled data center frenzy is hurtling us further and faster into environmental catastrophe. A single data center can use as much energy as an entire city. Tech corporations are demanding so much extra energy and water as they compete for AI dominance that entire coal plants scheduled for closure are being kept open.

Why would Pennsylvanians allow Amazon’s drive to dominate the AI scene reverse our sorely needed green transition?

Some dystopian nightmares are best kept on screen.

The pristine plating of this data center news, unironically garnished with words like rebuild and training and jobs, made me think back to President Donald Trump’s nomination of Andy Puzder as secretary of labor early in his first term. Puzder, a multimillionaire fast-food executive, famously said he’d like to replace employees with robots because they never need time off. Recognizing the value of U.S. workers, and automation as one of the causes of American job loss, people across race, place, and generation came together in early 2017 and chipped away enough Senate support for Puzder to withdraw his nomination.

Eight years later, automation feels like an amuse-bouche before we gorge on the poisonous main course of data centers.

With too many Pennsylvanians living on a financial razor’s edge, I can understand the allure of Amazon’s claims that these data centers “will create at least 1,250 high-paying, high-tech jobs.” But these data centers and their jobs claims are a dangerous bait and switch. Reporting has concluded that data centers provide poor quality jobs, and at numbers drastically lower than the bombastic claims these corporations make. We can’t pay our bills or feed our kids with false promises.

Worse yet, we, as taxpayers, are footing the bill for tech’s dirty energy expansion with little to no benefits to show for it.

As a state, we’ve already given $23 million in subsidies to Amazon; need we invest more in a system that doesn’t benefit us? Although touted as an “investment in communities,” one study showed that only one new job is created for every $2 million we spend on data center tax subsidies.

Who are the real winners here? Certainly not working Pennsylvanians. We are facing a housing crisis, with one of the oldest housing stocks in the entire country. Our 401(k)s (if we even have private retirement) are shrinking thanks to Trump’s tariffs. And, in case we’ve forgotten, in the face of rising costs in every direction, our minimum wage is still $7.25 per hour.

Why would we add our tax dollars and public resources to Big Tech’s already obscene profits?

Amazon data centers are not an investment in us. An investment in Pennsylvania means knowing the struggles real Pennsylvanians are facing, and then investing in real solutions. This moment draws a clear line in the sand between representatives who serve the people’s interest vs. those who serve the interests of the wealthy and powerful.

While saying “take a hike” to the likes of Jeff Bezos, legislators should have their noses to the grindstone to pass the PA Home Preservation Program, which would deliver critical health and safety repairs for homeowners that many of us couldn’t otherwise afford.

Legislators could even get extra credit for generating good revenue by passing a wealth tax, so billionaires like Bezos and Pennsylvania’s own Jeffrey Yass can “invest” by paying the taxes they owe, and we can beef up Shapiro’s Housing Action Plan.

Real Pennsylvanians want good jobs, strong independent businesses, and a roof over our heads. Not multinational corporations that want our land, water, energy, and tax dollars.

Carrie Santoro is the executive director of Pennsylvania Stands Up.

This article was originally published in The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 26, 2025.