Amazon has switched on a sprawling AI data-center campus in New Carile, Indiana—seven buildings that rose from cornfields in roughly a year as part of “Project Rainer.” The first phase is already running about 500,000 Tranium 2 chips dedicated to Anthropic’s model training, with Amazon and Anthropic expecting to surpass one million Tranium 2 chips by year-end and begin rolling in Tranium 3. Backed by what state officials call the largest capital investment in Indiana history, the site sits on 1,200 acres and is slated to grow to 30 buildings. Local incentives include more than $4 billion in county tax exemptions over 35 years and additional state breaks, while Amazon says it will create about 1,000 long-term jobs, at least 600 of them above the county’s average wage.
The project is a showcase for Amazon’s in-house silicon strategy: data halls filled with its own Tranium and supporting infrastructure rather than Nvidia GPUs. Amazon argues that tightly controlling the stack—plus packing more, simpler chips per building—improves price-performance and accelerates delivery amid a global compute crunch. Executives say the rapid buildout reflects surging demand from AI customers and Amazon’s experience industrializing cloud infrastructure, with newer facilities incorporating liquid cooling and other efficiency upgrades as construction continues.
Speed hasn’t quieted concerns. At full build, the campus is expected to draw about 2.2 gigawatts—power on the scale of more than a million homes—and use millions of gallons of water, stoking worries over grid strain, rates, traffic, and local aquifers in and around the 1,900-person town. Amazon points to on-site water treatment and existing Indiana wind and solar projects contributing to the grid, while acknowledging the near-term need for gas generation on the path to its 2040 net-zero goal. With two more campuses underway on site, additional facilities planned in Mississippi and beyond, and AI demand still climbing, Amazon’s message is simple: the build doesn’t slow unless the market does.
Video Courtsey of CNBC
Video Courtsey of CNBC
