Amazon acquires 400 acres near new Intel development in Ohio

https://www.dispatch.com/story/business/2023/01/25/amazon-buys-hundreds-of-acres-in-new-albany-mum-on-what-it-plans/69833373007/

by ericmay • 3 years ago

135 97 3 years ago

dispatch.com

MrCharismatist• 3 years ago

https://archive.ph/VssmA

Sounds like us-east-2d is coming.

ericmay6• 3 years ago

Thanks for sharing the non-paywalled article!

TeMPOraL• 3 years ago

Thanks for saying this, as it made me pay attention - and so I must now ask in surprise: when did we lose the automatic "web"/"archive" links in HN submissions?

tester756• 3 years ago

Is Ohio becoming tech heartland?

ch4s3• 3 years ago

Hard to say yet, but it isn't impossible and the triangle between Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Columbus isn't the worst option. There are a bunch of universities in range to draw talent, including Carnegie Mellon, OSU, and some smaller state and private schools. The land is cheap and the cost of living is pretty low.

ydnaclementine• 3 years ago

Always has been

LarryMullins• 3 years ago

Ohio invented outer space after all.

ProAm• 3 years ago

I'm not sure if you've ever been to Ohio, but no.

agentwiggles• 3 years ago

Seems at least semi-possible given all the recent investment. I've lived in Columbus for the last decade or so and generally enjoy living here.

I view all this development with some trepidation as more high-paying jobs and big salaries threaten to do to Columbus and the surrounding area what has happened to lots of other tech cities though. Housing here is still _semi_ reasonable but definitely increasing fast, and the city has a fairly small footprint compared to other major metros.

Even so, it's an exciting time in a state which I think is usually fairly underrated as flyover country.

makestuff• 3 years ago

I thought Chicago/Illinois had a good shot at becoming the midwest tech hub, but Ohio seems to be making a good run at it. Don't get me wrong Chicago has tech companies, but Columbus is making some major gains there.

exclusiv• 3 years ago

Chicago could have been but they have long been hostile to businesses. And it's a big country. So you can see why some of these cities provide crazy tax incentives.

stjohnswarts• 3 years ago

Which is a shame since Chicago is a great city and Illinois is a blue state that has a much better history with individual rights (outside of guns). I think that's something that younger tech workers really want in a place they plan on being in for a while.

sparrc• 3 years ago

Do datacenters actually do anything to draw in engineering or a significant number of tech jobs? Beyond just HVAC and a few server operations people.

us-west-2 certainly hasn't done much to make The Dalles, Oregon a tech hub (or even Portland for that matter)

ericmay6• 3 years ago

They don't, though at least this development seems to have enough footprint to do something interesting. A lot of people I talk to get excited "Google is coming to town" and it's like, you don't want warehouses (datacenters) moving in, you want engineers, designers, marketing teams, c-suite to move in. Intel is an example for Columbus of one of those things you really do want to come into town, which is why it's such a big deal.

hparadiz• 3 years ago

After growing up in Pennsylvania you could not pay me to move back to one of these states in the Northeast. First of all there's barely any tech jobs so even if you were payed really well by Google or Amazon you would be at their mercy. If they fired you you'd be pretty much fucked.

myko2• 3 years ago

Yes, there's even a shirt for it: https://www.homage.com/products/the-silicon-heartland

Makes sense for tech companies to be in the Columbus area, Ohio State has an excellent CS program.

The big markets in Columbus are banks and insurance.

ericmay6• 3 years ago

Healthcare, government, education too.

I really don’t like that shirt. Nicknames are earned. They have to be organic!

sriram_sun• 3 years ago

Is Phoenix a tech heartland? How long has Intel been around that area? My guess is no.

asdff6• 3 years ago

I'm not sure it will be as long as the ohio republican party is in total control of the state. Between the rampant gerrymandering and corruption, abortion stance, lgbt stance, attacks on public education and critical race theory, and recently declaring natural gas is green energy, its hard to imagine that this will foster an innovative and progressive environment long term.

samvher• 3 years ago

It's not obvious to me why it would be very beneficial to have a data center close to an Intel plant, but it sounds a bit like it might not be a coincidence that they're close together. If someone knows why this pairing makes sense, care to explain?

(The closest thing I can think of is low delivery costs on electronics, but that seems really tiny compared to basically anything else that matters here, and it's not like they would typically get delivered straight from a plant, so that doesn't seem like it would be it.)

jcims• 3 years ago

Probably more about utilities/logistics of supporting both plants.

discodave• 3 years ago

To wit: One way you can find Amazon (or other) datacenters on Google maps is to look for the substation next door.

tomschlick• 3 years ago

Most likely its just that the county officials there are willing to clear red-tape and expedite zoning/permitting/inspection for large corps looking to place high tech jobs there. Possibly negotiate property tax breaks too.

tersers• 3 years ago

This is the simplest and most likely answer, not everything in tech is a big masterminded ploy

acdha• 3 years ago

That would be my assumption as well: they're relatively similar in what they're looking for many of the same things: reasonable prices for land, water, electricity, etc., amenable local government, and reasonable housing + workforce. Intel's going to need more people but otherwise I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that both lists of candidate locations ended up being very similar.

wyldfire• 3 years ago

Probably useful for Amazon to leverage:

* similar subsidies that Intel benefits from

* public resources that Intel benefits from

* population/education/employees/housing that Intel draws to work there

jonas21• 3 years ago

It's a coincidence in the sense that there's probably not a particular reason for Amazon to want to be next to Intel.

It's not a coincidence in the sense that Ohio recently passed a bunch of tax incentives for building "megaprojects" [1], and New Albany in particular seems to be investing heavily in the infrastructure that would be required for such projects. So it's not surprising they both ended up there.

[1] https://www.pwc.com/us/en/services/tax/library/ohio-modifies...

[2] https://spectrumnews1.com/oh/columbus/news/2022/08/04/new-al...

MuffinFlavored• 3 years ago

I wonder where Ohio ranks in terms of "cheapness" to build compared to all 49 other states in the country (even before tax incentives)

virtuallynathan• 3 years ago

Power availability?

asdff6• 3 years ago

Cheap power availability but its mostly natural gas and coal, apparently Ohio is the 4th highest energy consuming state. Sanctified power too, now that the governor signed a bill declaring natural gas is to be considered green energy.

https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=OH

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/01/1...

tpmx• 3 years ago

I could easily imagine some of those spammy, idiotic and successful youtubers going on and on about how this will enable AWS to much more efficently ship those ~100 gram Intel CPUs from where they are manufactured to where they will be used and thereby gain a decisive competitive advantage.

whalesalad• 3 years ago

A rising tide lifts all boats. If there is a big tech partner in that particular region, there will be better supporting infra as well (employee base, friendly local municipalities, fiber internet, power infrastructure, etc)

plus they can yeet the xeon's over the highway via a pneumatic tube system

nickpeterson2• 3 years ago

I went to high school in New Albany in the early 2000s, it’s crazy to me how developed that whole area has become. Likely to have some big downsides, but tax money isn’t one of them.

MrDunham2• 3 years ago

I moved to Columbus after growing up in the Bay Area ~5 years ago, am friends with the head of economic development, and my wife worked at one of the data centers near Intel.

It's hard to describe the sheer amount of land available there within only a 20 minute drive from a top 20 population town. Although I'm still a self-described snobby Californian, there is quite a lot to do here (except skiing and the beach).

But to answer your question, that area is: 1. Close to a city (which Meta found out was important because no one wants to live in a place with two restaurants and crap schools) 2. They ran fiber in a 30 mile dia ring around most/the entire city 3. There is water galore 4. There is abundant and cheap electricity 5. There is (decent) access to talent 6. The schools are good and real estate is cheap, so you can import talent (like me and my wife) 7. The governor's office is very business friendly 8. Taxes are low (for everyone, there is talk of going to 0% income tax)

So - this isn't really "why does a data center want to be near Intel" and more "there is a lot of assets in the immediate area that makes it wildly attractive to tech and other companies" and Columbus (and New Albany) has been extensively aggressive in getting these projects.

Side note, we have: * 3ish AWS data centers (DC) * A Google DC (I think under construction) campus * Two Meta DC campuses (10 500k sq ft buildings built and planned)

I don't think Microsoft nor Apple are here... yet. Wife was on DC site selection and nearly always they all end up in each location just down the street from each other.

Edit: it's also centrally located and a 12 hr drive to 60+% of the US population. Good for manufacturing and data centers.

Also, another poster noted very low natural disasters and seismic activity

hnburnsy2• 3 years ago

Doesn't New Albany have an income tax, on top of state and federal taxes, and extra property tax rate to pay for the new infrastructure. Gotta pay for the upkeep on that white fence.

asdff6• 3 years ago

Ohio is positioning itself as a red state that will listen to business interests over most anything. Recently the governor signed a law stating natural gas would be considered green energy in Ohio. This could allow power hungry industry to use cheap gas and tout being 'green,' for example, but it at least signals to industry that the state legislature will pen whatever they dictate and the governor will sign it.

1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/01/1...

yazaddaruvala2• 3 years ago

Probably just another data center.

But instead I’ll take a leap and predict:

This is Amazon moving into not just designing Graviton but also vertically integrating silicon fabrication (for CPU, memory, and/or storage) into their portfolio.

bob1029• 3 years ago

Fabrication is a red line. Apple-style chip design is as far as it will ever go.

You'd need to take the combined capital of Apple, Microsoft and Amazon, along with 2-3 decades of time to even begin considering becoming competitive with the likes of TSM or Samsung. Who is signing up for that risk profile?

yazaddaruvala2• 3 years ago

Fabrication (or the loss of access to it at an affordable price) is an existential risk for every IAAS provider!

Lets forget about WW3, but even the risk of a TSMC monopoly (or rather a TSMC+Apple monopoly) and price gouging is existential enough that Amazon has plenty of risk sitting on the sidelines regarding fabrication.

It would be very inline with AWS to start fabrication as a service to avoid this existential risk. They can always start with easier node sizes for SSDs / DDRs / networking / automotive chips / etc. Even if only to self-source, Amazon alone needs a roughly-infinite supply of these speciality chips. Even totally new innovation that "only Amazon-types" need, like a Silicon interconnect the size of a Datacenter Cabinet (if the yield is reasonable) would be interesting to see.

They could even make a play at SiC chips[0]. If they can make it cheap and at small enough node sizes, I'd love to see what innovation SiC could bring to datacenter design. eg more efficient power supplies of each server/rack/cabinet.

[0] https://www.investors.com/news/technology/silicon-carbide-ch...

jeffbee• 3 years ago

Interesting. I associate the region with air pollution and carbon-intensive power. Ohio is near the bottom of the 50 states in wind and solar energy. A few years ago I would not have said Ohio was going to attract so much datacenter construction, but now every big datacenter operator is there.

nickpeterson2• 3 years ago

Carbon intensive power is likely cheaper, unfortunately, so there’s that.

renewedrebecca• 3 years ago

It's ok- our governor just declared natural gas to be green energy, so we don't need that silly wind and solar stuff.

snihalani• 3 years ago

This is what the layoff money was used for

rotten6• 3 years ago

I live next to where this is going in (walking distance). We already have a huge Google Data Center, One of the Ohio-east region availability zones. A Meta data center and office park, and a dbt data center under construction all within a short radius. We also have a vitamin factory being built, we have a large Amazon Fulfillment center, an R&D lab for a perfume company, and an R&D lab for plastics packaging. All of this has been built over the last 3 or 4 years.

This particular spot has electricity and water available from multiple service providers. It has one of the lowest seismic activity ratings in the US. We don't get hurricanes and very rarely get tornados. It is very flat and has great access to highways. We are within a 12 hour drive of something like 60% of the population of the US.

There are huge tax incentives to support Intel's Ohio One, which may have 6-10 fabs built within the next few years. The Intel project is paying for highway development the power and sewer extensions and more.

Spin off development is adding a slew of hotels, big box stores and other development all happening at the same time.

The local schools are rated very highly, and we are only a short drive from The Ohio State University, which is one of the largest universities in the country.

Columbus has a vibrant startup scene with several unicorns in the last couple of years.

They are taking our quiet country town on the outskirts of Columbus, of about 15K people to 100K people over the course of the next 7 years. They are taking many square miles of farmland to make this happen. They are bulldozing over everyone and anything that gets in their way. The developers are making money hand-over-fist. In particular Les Wexner's development company "The New Albany Company". Wexner is one of the key players behind all of this development.

I live on land that goes back in my wife's family to a Revolutionary war grant. I'm pretty sure we will be pushed out within the next year or two as well. The only thing that has stopped them so far is that we have most of the land set as conservation land, which is hard to undo and just pave over.

That doesn't stop the bulldozers from pushing things around next door to us and right up to our property line.

They cut down huge swaths of forest with 100, 150+ year old trees. They got permission to wipe out acres and acres of wetlands without having to worry about mitigation by donating the money to some wildlife fund instead.

We have a pair of displaced bald eagles that have been spotted flying around the area now trying to find a new home.

rconti• 3 years ago

Is this Delaware?

rotten6• 3 years ago

No, New Albany-Johnstown. Delaware is 40 - 45 minute drive.

rotten6• 3 years ago

Oh, I think they already started construction on a second AWS ohio-east availability zone in this development area. The new acquisition raises the possibility of a third one here.

zengid• 3 years ago

That went from an exciting story about a growing tech hub to an intimate tale of the wake of destruction taking place. Sorry to hear about the disruption this development is bringing. I do feel like this is exciting for the central US, having grown up in the mid-west. I hope you and your family don't get bulldozed over!

AnimalMuppet• 3 years ago

Digression: Why do people out there make such a big deal about "The Ohio State University"? Is it just pretentiousness? Is it that "there's only one state university in Ohio, and we're it"? (Which seems like an odd point of pride.) Or what?

beastman82• 3 years ago

It's silly that's all I know

rotten6• 3 years ago

I have no idea, but you'll get corrected right fast if you forget to include the "The".

ericmay6• 3 years ago

It’s just for fun and marketing basically. It’s used sarcastically or emphatically with friends but still in a joking spirit. Like someone might say let’s go grab a burger from Northstar and someone will jokingly say “you mean THE Northstar?” And it’s just silly humor.

lofatdairy2• 3 years ago

There _is_ an Ohio University that can cause confusion, even for Ohio natives. The reasons for the definite article though stem from its legal history and has mostly just become a way Ohioans signify as being "in the know". Anyone unironically taking offense probably takes offense at the idea OSU's reputation doesn't extend much further out the Midwest (speaking as an Ohioan).

automatoney• 3 years ago

Read it as like underdog state pride, in the sense of "the one and only" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/the%20one%20and%2.... It's certainly not the only state university - Ohio University is only about an hour away.

myko2• 3 years ago

It's the official name of the university, whereas most would just be "X State University", OSU happens to have "The" in its official name, that's all:

https://library.osu.edu/archives/faq#1

"""

However, the "The" was actually part of the state legislation when the university was renamed in 1878. The following excerpt is from the Board of Trustee minutes:

"...the educational institution heretofore known as the 'Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College,' shall be known and designated hereafter as 'The Ohio State University.'"

"""

cycrutchfield2• 3 years ago

I never understand this mentality. Keep undeveloped land undeveloped for what? People would rather have unemployment and opiate addicts instead of development and progress.

lofatdairy2• 3 years ago

I don't think GP is advocating to keep the land undeveloped. They even go so far as the point out how the area makes a lot of sense for developers. The problems they identify seem to be 1) the reckless abandon to which developers are damaging ecosystems 2) an economic situation that allows developers to benefit significantly without these benefits necessarily passing into the community 3) the significant challenges of rapid population growth and 4) the fact that this development threatens their home. These are worth discussing and balancing against any benefits.

I also object your false dichotomy, and the idea that employment and "progress" (I doubt we can ever objectively make such a declaration) are zero-sum here.

jimjimjim• 3 years ago

don't come crying to me about the rising cost of canned air

eagleinparadise• 3 years ago

Yeah, these people have the decision to sell or hold. Yet people blather on asif some anon-gov't agent "stole land" or something

reeckoh• 3 years ago

If you're in the US, find your nearest national forest and take a scenic drive through it.

When you get back, let us know how many opiate addicts you saw.

kashunstva• 3 years ago

Keep it undeveloped for what, you ask? Interestingly this featureless wasted space is likely the home of a rich ecosystem evolved and evolving right here. And this very ecosystem may well support human thriving too in ways that people whooshing past won’t begin to understand.

People would rather have unemployment and opiate addicts instead of development and progress.

So that’s our choice - big box stores and Amazon warehouses or opiate addicts and unemployment? In this formulation, the more progress, the fewer opiate addicts. So if we roll the clock back to, say, the mid 1500’s the whole continent would have been full of opiate addicts. Or possibly the directionality of the relationship is wrong. Or opiate addiction and unemployment are a little more complicated than that there’s “unused” land around.

redonkulus• 3 years ago

Real life Yellowstone but instead of ski resorts and casino's, its data centers.

rhacker• 3 years ago

I imagine almost everywhere in the world where something went from rural to metropolis there are stories like this, but the winners write the ending of the story, backed by the legions of people that profit with them.

notatoad2• 3 years ago

and instead of mountains and rivers and breathtaking scenery, it's featureless flat land.

maxfurman• 3 years ago

This comment was a wild ride. Progress has its price, I suppose.

hnburnsy2• 3 years ago

Columbus, Ohio, a nice place to live, but you wouldn't want to visit.

jgwil2• 3 years ago

It would be nice if they could do some of this development in a sustainable way, like encouraging walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods with reasonable density, but unfortunately based on the language in your comment (highways, big box stores) it sounds like yet another car-dependent, sprawling suburb.

chromatin• 3 years ago

Well, many of the existing small towns around (and being engulfed by) Columbus Ohio predate Columbus; some date to early 1800s like Worthington (1803), and are quite walkable.

It's the new development described in the OP that's building car-dependent sprawling exurbs.

thatfrenchguy• 3 years ago

America does not know how to build those kind of neighborhoods, and most non-immigrant Americans have been living in car dependent suburbs for 3 generations now, good luck making them understand the (amazing) benefits and (slightly annoying, although lower if you live in newer housing) costs of living in a city. A lot of them can't even imagine it.

notatoad2• 3 years ago

datacentres are not a good fit for walkable, mixed-use development. they don't really serve people, they don't add value to a neighbourhood for the residents. the best way to make walkable mixed-use neighbourhoods with reasonable density is to shove the uses that don't fit within that style out to the edge of the city, which seems to be exactly what they're doing here.

gonzo41• 3 years ago

Wiping out that wetland may be a big mistake. Wetlands flood. I hope they had a climate change updated 1:100 year flood study done. Oh well.

I would suggest you consider making it painfull for them and trying to extract the highest price from them as you can. If it really is as inevitable as you say.

All the best.

klyrs2• 3 years ago

1:100 is nothing these days. The initial alarm bells over "global warming" didn't have access to the computational resources we have today and focused on average global temperature. We're seeing 1:1000 events downright frequently these days because the planet hasn't seen conditions like this in a very long time and our statistical models have a hundred years of lag built-in. I do hope they get their engineering right; fabs are full of nasty chemistry and in a flood plain it will travel quite far as the water rises.

Isn't Ohio tornado country?

dsfyu404ed• 3 years ago

If you do manage to hang onto your land then what? The development will drive up property values to the moon and bring in all the people and problems that are included with that. You won't want to live in what your town is becoming.

zahma2• 3 years ago

Thanks for posting this. I’m sorry to hear about what all this “progress” might cost you personally in addition to the habitats around you. I don’t believe we have the right to cut down trees older than we are. It appears I’m in the minority in this country.

Something similar happened to my partner’s grandmother’s place in rural France in a matter of years.

My partner grew up in her grandparent’s backyard that was loaded with a garden, fields, and animals. They had no neighbors within sight. Slowly all around them new commercial developments cropped up. The equivalent of a Lowe’s or Super Target, different bricks and mortar, and the like. The nail in the coffin was the McDonald’s adjacent to their property, probably the same field where my spouse used to roll in the dirt. Now the house has been converted to an optician storefront. The area was re-zoned with no appreciation for the inhabitants. I suppose it had to go somewhere, but why does the march of “progress” have the familiar feeling of tragedy?

Her grandparents were immigrants of the Spanish Civil War, and this property epitomized their grit and triumph. To see it today, it is haunted and sad. It is unimaginable that a family ever lived there.

I wish I could offer you hope, but the only solace in this tragedy of so-called progress is the conservation easement. Plant some trees for me, and good luck to you.

snordgren• 3 years ago

Of course we need to cut down trees that are older than we are. The alternative to development is stagnation and poverty. It's medieval Europe where the social status of your parents decided your social status and that of your children.

Change is always hard, but the alternative is so much worse. There is no terra nullius that we can develop without anyone being bothered by it. Every house ever built does not have to be a museum to those who once lived there. We have too much of that thinking in Europe, where cultural conservation takes precedence over economic development, and as a consequence the economic wellbeing of the population suffers. It's great for tourists, but you can't live and do business in a city-sized museum.

dopylitty• 3 years ago

Sorry to hear that. Same thing happened in Loudoun county VA (us-east-1). It used to be a beautiful rural county with farmland or forests but last I was there is was absolutely covered with hulking concrete data centers with giant fences around them.

I can’t say it’s worth it. The AWS console should show how many acres of forest were plowed under for every EMR cluster that gets launched.

rayiner• 3 years ago

I grew up one county over in Fairfax. It was a double whammy. The Loudoun tech jobs attracted all these knowledge workers that flipped the state blue and set it on a path of decline (just like California, another formerly prosperous red state whose best days are behind it).

lr1970• 3 years ago

They got permission to wipe out acres and acres of wetlands without having to worry about mitigation by donating the money to some wildlife fund instead.

How is it anything but manifestation of the blatant corruption? And who run's this "wildlife fund" -- governor's nephew perhaps?

taylodl2• 3 years ago

Wouldn't be surprised. Ohio has become a solid red state and its Republican majority state government is corrupt to the core.

taylodl2• 3 years ago

You're going to move - the taxes are going to eat you alive. I live on the NW side of Columbus and have many friends living in your area. It's now starting to dawn on them the taxes are going to drive them out.

It's interesting to hear about your wife's family history. My wife's family are the founders of that area - there's a plaque in town telling the history. They used to own large amounts of land in New Albany and the Westerville area. Lost it all during the Great Depression.

Things change.

On the bright side, AWS services are going to be super fast now!

Amazon acquires 400 acres near new Intel development in Ohio

Related Stories