Amazon Web Services has abandoned plans to build a new data center in Hood County, Texas, after seeking a property tax exemption of up to 90 percent over 30 years.
The decision was reported by CBS News. A spokesperson for AWS stated that Hood County was one of several location options under consideration, but the company ultimately decided against building the facility there.
Hood County, located in North Texas, was considered as a potential hub for the expansion. However, local authorities raised questions about the project due to the way negotiations were conducted.
Hood County Commissioner Dave Eagle said the project developer initially spoke about creating jobs, benefiting the local community, and upgrading local infrastructure. However, Eagle noted that the developer provided little specific information about what the facility would actually entail, leading him to vote against the proposal.
The technical specifications for the proposed data center were never publicly disclosed. Key details regarding its expected power capacity, land footprint, and anticipated electricity and water consumption remained unknown throughout the discussions.
Data center growth and regulatory challenges
The cancellation in Hood County highlights a growing debate over rapid data center expansion across Texas. According to a June analysis by the Texas Tribune, a non-profit news outlet based in Austin, at least 248 data centers were planned across the state.
Almost half of those planned facilities were located in areas outside municipal boundaries. In these unincorporated territories, county governments have significantly less legal authority to regulate construction, land use, and industrial development compared to incorporated cities.
Data centers are large-scale facilities housing thousands of computer servers and specialized hardware accelerators that power modern cloud services and artificial intelligence. Operating these facilities requires immense electrical grid capacity, massive volumes of water for cooling systems, suitable land parcels, and approval from local authorities.
Amazon Web Services, the cloud computing division of retail giant Amazon, relies on these heavy industrial sites to deliver computational power globally. The company's retreat from Hood County demonstrates how local resource constraints and tax negotiations can halt a project before ground is broken. AWS has not disclosed which site it will choose as an alternative.
