Data center NDAs have become one of the clearest symbols of the backlash against AI infrastructure, and Amazon says it no longer signs them. In a blog post on Friday 2 October 2026, AWS chief executive Matt Garman wrote: “We no longer use nondisclosure agreements with the government agencies we work with on our projects.” The same post launched Built Together, a pledge of more than $1 billion over five years for the communities that host Amazon’s data centers.
TechCrunch’s Equity podcast paired the move with a second story in its 9 October episode, “Amazon drops data center NDAs, and AI agents want your credit card”. The thread that links them is trust. Communities want to know what is being built next door before the deal is done, and consumers are being asked to hand AI agents their inboxes, files and payment cards, if websites will even let those agents in. Both depend on people believing what technology companies tell them.
We read Amazon’s post in full, along with Representative Jamie Raskin’s letters to Amazon, Google, Meta and Oracle, Microsoft’s March announcement on the same subject, Pennsylvania’s August executive order and the WIRED, Wall Street Journal and TechCrunch reporting. This article sets out what Amazon actually promised on data center NDAs, what the promise leaves out, how its other claims hold up, and what the agent half of the story adds. For the agent side in depth, see our report on websites blocking AI agents.
Table of contents
- What Amazon Actually Said About Data Center NDAs
- The Timeline Behind Amazon’s Data Center NDAs Decision
- Why Data Center NDAs Became a Flashpoint
- What Amazon’s Data Center NDAs Pledge Leaves Out
- How Amazon’s Other Data Center Claims Hold Up
- The Second Story: AI Agents Want Your Credit Card
- Why Trust Connects Data Center NDAs and AI Agents
- What the End of Data Center NDAs Means for Councils and Businesses
- Data Center NDAs FAQ
- References and Further Reading
What Amazon Actually Said About Data Center NDAs
The headline commitment is one sentence in a post of several thousand words. Garman spent most of it on what he called “misinformation and outright lies” about data centers. The NDA line sits in a list of tenets Amazon calls its “Amazon Data Center Commitment”, under the heading “Engaging Communities”.
One sentence, carefully scoped
The exact wording matters: Amazon no longer uses nondisclosure agreements “with the government agencies we work with on our projects”. That covers the counties, cities and state bodies that approve permits and incentives. It says nothing about contractors, landowners, utilities or the shell companies that often front early site work. The scope of that sentence is the whole story of Amazon’s data center NDAs pledge, and we return to it below.
The rest of the Data Center Commitment
Alongside the NDA line, Amazon commits to host open houses where it operates and to share plans “as early as possible”. It will publish its energy use, energy efficiency, water use, water efficiency and the share of carbon-free energy every year. New sites will use backup generators that meet the EPA’s Tier 4 emissions standard. Amazon repeats its goal of being water positive across its data centers by 2030, saying it was 75% of the way there in 2025, and cites a 2025 global power usage effectiveness of 1.14, against an industry average of 1.25.
Built Together: more than $1 billion over five years
Built Together adds more than $1 billion over five years “to what we’re already doing”, in three pillars. The first is free community college and workforce training, which Amazon says will connect more than 300,000 students to free degrees over five years, plus more training centers on or near data center sites. The second is grants for energy efficiency upgrades, targeting more than 300 schools and community buildings and more than 30,000 homes. The third is flexible funding, “millions of dollars per year in each community”, for priorities residents choose.
The pillars come with targets that can be tracked over the five years, which matters more than the headline sum.
| Built Together pillar | Target in Amazon’s post | Timing |
|---|---|---|
| Free community college | More than 300,000 students connected to free degree access | Over five years; launch “in the next few months” |
| Modular Training Centers | 3 operating, 6 in development, 16 more planned; 2,000 to 4,000 learners each per year | Up to 100,000 workers a year by the end of 2028 |
| Energy efficiency grants | 300+ schools and community buildings, 30,000+ homes, about $700 saved per household a year | Over five years; rollout “in the coming months” |
| Water projects | 65+ projects returning more than 8 billion gallons a year | Already contracted |
| Flexible community funding | “Millions of dollars per year in each community” | Annual, with reporting on outcomes |
None of these targets depends on data center NDAs either way, but they share a weakness with the NDA pledge: they are self-reported. Amazon promises “transparent reporting on outcomes” for the community funding, and that reporting is what councils should ask to see.
| Commitment | What Amazon says | How it can be checked |
|---|---|---|
| No NDAs with government agencies | “We no longer use” them on its projects | Public records requests to councils hosting new projects |
| Open houses and early disclosure | Plans shared “as early as possible” | Dates of first public meeting against first permit filing |
| Annual energy and water figures | Use, efficiency and carbon-free share, published yearly | Whether figures are per site or only fleet-wide |
| Water positive by 2030 | 75% of the way there as of 2025 | Replenishment project volumes against local use |
| Tier 4 backup generators | On new sites, or the regional equivalent | Air permit applications |
| Built Together | More than $1 billion over five years, three pillars | Per-community grant reporting, which Amazon promises |
The Timeline Behind Amazon's Data Center NDAs Decision
Amazon did not move first, and it did not move without pressure. The decision follows a Microsoft pledge in March, a state ban in August and a congressional investigation that landed three days before the post.
Microsoft went first, in March
On 18 March 2026, Microsoft announced it would stop asking local governments to sign NDAs, building on a “Community-First AI Infrastructure Plan” it had published in January. Microsoft also said it was “working to identify any active NDAs in place globally” and would “coordinate termination” with the local governments concerned. Raskin’s letters pointedly asked the other companies why they still used data center NDAs after Microsoft had dropped them.
The pressure in September
Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro banned data center NDAs by executive order on 18 August, as part of rules that also pulled data centers out of the state’s fast-track permitting programme. In September, Representatives Greg Landsman, Jamie Raskin and Tom Barrett introduced the bipartisan No Secrets for Data Centers Act, which would ban NDAs that stop government officials discussing proposed data center projects with the public. On Tuesday 29 September, Raskin sent letters to Amazon, Google, Meta and Oracle demanding copies of their agreements with public officials.
Amazon told the Journal before it told the public
The Wall Street Journal’s report on the Raskin letters, published on 30 September, already carried the line that “Amazon said it no longer uses NDAs with government collaborators on data-center projects”. The blog post two days later codified a position the company had given to reporters. Neither the Journal report nor the post says when Amazon actually stopped signing data center NDAs.
Each bar counts calendar days from 18 March, so a full bar is the 198 days to Amazon’s post and each width is the day count divided by 198. Amazon’s public commitment on data center NDAs came three days after the Raskin letters and more than six months after Microsoft’s.
Why Data Center NDAs Became a Flashpoint
Nondisclosure agreements are routine in commercial property deals. They became a political problem when they started binding the elected officials who decide on tax breaks, zoning changes and utility upgrades paid for in part by residents.
How data center NDAs work in practice
The typical sequence is simple. A site selector or a newly formed company approaches a county under a code name, and officials sign an agreement covering the end user, the power demand and the incentives on offer. Residents often learn the details only when a permit is filed. The environmental campaigner Erin Brockovich described the pattern to TechCrunch in May: “projects announced after permits are already secured, developers who don’t return calls, local officials who signed NDAs before their neighbors knew a project was being considered”. That is the experience data center NDAs have come to stand for.
What the agreements hide
Raskin’s investigation describes the pattern. Amazon’s agreements, his release says, prohibit local officials from disclosing “broadly defined ‘proprietary’ or ‘confidential’ information”, leaving them unsure what they can tell constituents, and Amazon has also used shell companies to conceal its involvement. A Google representative acknowledged asking San Jose officials to sign agreements to avoid a public relations problem. Louisiana governor Jeff Landry personally signed one with a Meta subsidiary tied to a $50 billion campus.
The backlash in numbers
Garman himself says more than 100 data center moratoriums are being considered across the United States, and New York has announced a one-year moratorium on permits for large facilities. A Wall Street Journal poll found that 62% of voters support pausing data center development. Raskin’s release says more than 1,000 new data centers are reportedly in development across more than 40 states. Data center NDAs are the part of that backlash a company can fix with a policy change, which is why they moved first.
The industry’s case for secrecy
The argument for data center NDAs is not invented. Executives told the Journal that some confidentiality is needed to avoid revealing proprietary details to competitors, and because contractors and suppliers tend to raise prices once they learn a large AI company is building locally. Microsoft kept a narrow exception too: it may still share trade secrets or security details with a local government, for example design specifications needed for a building permit, while protecting them from public records requests.
What Amazon's Data Center NDAs Pledge Leaves Out
Read closely, the commitment is narrower than the headlines. Four gaps matter for anyone trying to hold Amazon to account on data center NDAs, and none of them is addressed anywhere in the post.
Data center NDAs signed by contractors
WIRED points to a case reported by the Houston Chronicle in September: a senior official in Wharton County, Texas, signed an NDA about an Amazon project, but with a contractor, VisionFirst Advisors, not with Amazon. Amazon “did not respond to WIRED’s queries about whether the promises around NDAs also extend to its contractors”. If they do not, data center NDAs can survive simply by being signed one step removed from Amazon.
Shell companies
Raskin’s letters say Amazon “has also used shell companies to conceal its involvement in proposed data centers”. The Built Together post does not mention shell companies or say whether Amazon will identify itself from the first contact with a council. An NDA and an anonymous LLC achieve much the same thing for residents.
Data center NDAs already signed
Microsoft said it would find and terminate its existing agreements, and handle questions about existing records case by case. Amazon’s post is silent on agreements already in force. Data center NDAs signed before the policy change, on projects that are still in planning, may still bind officials today.
Private parties and utilities
The pledge covers “government agencies”. Utilities, landowners and economic development groups that are not government bodies are outside it, and those are often where the details residents care about, such as power contracts and land prices, actually sit.
| Measure | Who it binds | Existing agreements | Exceptions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft, 18 March | Microsoft, with local governments | Being identified and terminated | Trade secrets and security details, such as permit drawings |
| Pennsylvania order, 18 August | Data center projects seeking state permits | Not stated in the coverage we read | Not stated in the coverage we read |
| Amazon, 2 October | Amazon, with government agencies | Not addressed | Contractors and private parties not addressed |
| No Secrets for Data Centers Act, September | Agreements that gag government officials | Not stated in the coverage we read | Not yet law |
How Amazon's Other Data Center Claims Hold Up
Most of Garman’s post is a rebuttal of what he calls four myths about water, electricity prices, pollution and community benefit. Dropping data center NDAs only builds trust if the numbers released alongside it survive scrutiny, so they are worth testing one by one.
Water
Garman says direct data center water use is about 0.5% of US direct industrial water use, that a typical data center uses about 170,000 gallons a day rather than the five million often quoted, and that Amazon’s average is under 13,000 gallons, “the equivalent of just 42 U.S. households”. TechCrunch notes the claim leaves out the water used to generate the electricity and to make the chips. Our analysis of water usage effectiveness explains why efficiency ratios and total consumption can move in opposite directions.
All three figures are Amazon’s own, from the post. Widths are each figure divided by five million: 170,000 is 3.4% of the bar and 13,000 is 0.26%, shown at the 1% minimum so it stays visible. None of them include indirect water use.
Electricity prices
Amazon says rates have risen in some states with many data centers, such as Illinois and New York, and fallen in others, such as Indiana and Mississippi, and blames rising prices mainly on an old grid: about 70% of power lines are more than 25 years old. TechCrunch points out that an independent watchdog recently named data centers as the main cause of a 76% year-on-year price increase on America’s largest grid.
Generators and pollution
Garman says backup generators “almost never run”, idling 99.9% of the time and running about ten hours a year, mostly for maintenance tests, and that critics quote the maximum emissions on permits. TechCrunch notes that a planned Amazon data center in Texas is permitted to release 33 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, more than any power plant in the United States.
The misinformation claim
Garman writes that there are “widespread reports of various countries intentionally seeding misinformation in the U.S. about data centers to trick us into slowing down”. WIRED reports that experts consider this narrative “widely overblown”, with little evidence that foreign misinformation is driving the backlash. Pairing an end to data center NDAs with a suggestion that critics are being manipulated sends a mixed message about how much Amazon trusts the communities it wants to win over.
The Second Story: AI Agents Want Your Credit Card
The other half of the Equity episode is about a different kind of access. A wave of personal AI assistants launched this autumn, and their makers are betting that people will let agents into their inboxes, files and credit cards.
A crowded week of launches
The episode’s show notes run through the field: Tab, which emerged from stealth with a $300 million valuation; Underdog, pitched as the most private competitor yet to Meta’s Muse and Instinct; Hark, which released an assistant with a focus on privacy; and Ghost, whose 19-year-old founder raised $11 million to build a $3,499 computer for a personal AI. Privacy is the common sales pitch, which says a lot about what buyers are worried about.
The websites are not cooperating
As we reported on 7 October, Amazon has blocked Muse from its store, Yelp bars non-human traffic unless an agent pays for its data, and Walmart’s human-verification check has been throwing agents out by accident. Airlines such as United point to terms that bar automated devices. An agent that holds your card is little use if the checkout will not let it through.
Platforms are tightening too
Apple says it is tightening macOS full disk access controls because of new risks from AI agents. On the payment side, the card networks are building their own trust layers: Visa and Cloudflare’s Trusted Agent Protocol and Mastercard’s Agent Pay let a merchant check that an agent at checkout is genuine without trusting every bot. These schemes exist because nobody yet takes an agent’s word for who it is. Agent payments are a cybersecurity problem as much as a commercial one: a stolen agent credential with card access is worth more to an attacker than a stolen password.
Why Trust Connects Data Center NDAs and AI Agents
The two stories look unrelated: one is about concrete and power lines, the other about software that shops for you. Equity framed the agent story around whether trust may be the real product for personal AI startups, and the same lens fits the NDA story.
Disclosure is the price of access
A council asked to approve a data center wants to know what it is agreeing to. A website asked to accept an agent wants to know who is behind it. A consumer asked to hand over a card wants to know what the agent will do with it. In each case the company asking for access has to disclose more than it used to, and data center NDAs were a way of disclosing less.
Promises are not enough on their own
Anthropic’s Dario Amodei has called the AI backlash “fundamentally a crisis of trust”, and the writer Jasmine Sun has noted that data center opponents’ usual reply to industry arguments is “I don’t believe them”. A dropped NDA policy helps only if residents can verify it. The same goes for agent makers’ privacy claims, which is why protocols that let a third party check an agent’s identity matter more than another privacy pledge.
What the End of Data Center NDAs Means for Councils and Businesses
The policy change is real, but its value depends on people using it. Here is what local officials and the businesses that buy cloud and AI services can do with it.
For councils and planning officials
Ask any developer, contractor or site selector for confidentiality terms in writing before the first meeting, and ask directly whether the end user is Amazon, Microsoft or another named company. Publish the answer. Our earlier analysis of data center regulation as an alternative to bans sets out how communities can use permitting and reporting rules to keep that leverage once data center NDAs are off the table.
For businesses buying cloud and AI capacity
Amazon now promises to publish annual energy and water figures. Put that promise into procurement: ask your cloud provider for per-region figures, not only fleet averages, and ask how it handles community commitments where it builds. Sustainability reporting rules for your own business increasingly depend on numbers like these. The end of data center NDAs with councils does not change what you can ask your own provider, but the annual figures give you something concrete to ask for.
For residents
If you live near a proposed site, ask your council in writing whether any officer or member has signed an NDA about the project, with Amazon or anyone else, and when. Ask for the agreement under your state’s public records law. Raskin’s letters ask the companies whether they have used data center NDAs to block public records requests, which tells you where the friction usually is.
For anyone trying an AI agent
Treat card access as you would a new employee’s spending authority. Use virtual cards with low limits where your bank offers them, prefer agents that use a merchant’s approved route, and check what an agent can do with your accounts before you connect them.
| Question to ask | Who should ask it | Why it matters now |
|---|---|---|
| Does the no-NDA policy cover your contractors? | Council officers, local reporters | Amazon has not said, and Texas shows the gap |
| Are any older agreements still binding officials? | Councils with projects in planning | Amazon’s post is silent on existing agreements |
| Which company is the end user? | Planning committees | Shell companies can hide it without any NDA |
| Can we have per-region energy and water figures? | Cloud customers | Annual publication is now promised |
| How does this agent pay, and with what limits? | Consumers and finance teams | Agents are asking for card access this autumn |
Data Center NDAs FAQ
Has Amazon stopped using data center NDAs?
Amazon says it no longer uses nondisclosure agreements with the government agencies it works with on its projects. It has not said whether that covers contractors, or what happens to agreements signed earlier.
What is Built Together?
Amazon’s new community investment framework for data center communities, starting in the US: more than $1 billion over five years for free community college and training, energy efficiency grants and locally chosen projects.
Who else has dropped data center NDAs?
Microsoft announced it would stop asking local governments to sign them on 18 March 2026 and is terminating existing ones. Pennsylvania banned them for projects seeking state permits by executive order on 18 August.
Why did Amazon announce it now?
The post followed letters from Representative Jamie Raskin to Amazon, Google, Meta and Oracle on 29 September, the bipartisan No Secrets for Data Centers Act and more than 100 proposed moratoriums. Amazon told the Wall Street Journal it had already stopped before the post went up.
Are other companies still using data center NDAs?
Raskin’s letters also went to Google, Meta and Oracle, which did not immediately comment to the Wall Street Journal. His release describes Google and Meta agreements in San Jose and Louisiana. Data center NDAs signed with contractors or other private parties are not covered by Amazon’s or Microsoft’s pledges.
What does the AI agents part of the story mean?
Personal AI assistants such as Muse, Instinct, Tab and Hark want access to inboxes, files and payment cards, but many websites still block agents, so trust has to be built on both sides.
References and Further Reading
Amazon’s approach to data centers: community-focused, sustainable and efficient (Amazon)
Amazon drops data center NDAs, and AI agents want your credit card (TechCrunch Equity)
Amazon responds to data center backlash, says it no longer uses NDAs (TechCrunch)
Amazon says it is going to stop using NDAs for data centers (WIRED)
Ranking Member Raskin probes Big Tech’s use of non-disclosure agreements (House Judiciary Democrats)
Tech giants face questions over secret AI data-center deals (The Wall Street Journal)
Putting communities first: our decision to end NDAs with local governments (Microsoft)
Shapiro puts new guardrails on Pa. data centers (Axios Pittsburgh)
Data Centers’ NDAs Would Be Banned Under New Bill (Newsweek)
How Amazon is making its data centers more water-efficient (Amazon)
The next hurdle for AI agents: getting websites to let them in (TechCrunch)
Another personal AI assistant has launched: meet Tab (TechCrunch)
At 19, Ghost founder raises $11 million to build a $3,499 computer for your personal AI (TechCrunch)
Anthropic CEO says AI backlash is fundamentally a crisis of trust (TechCrunch)
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