By Doug Kelly:
Happy National Small Business Week! Yesterday I wrote about how AI tools are helping power up America’s small businesses. But there’s a parallel story playing out in communities across the country.
Data centers are buying local. That’s sending billions in real dollars and real contracts to thousands of local small business suppliers, such as the paving company, the electrician, the fencing company, the lumber yard, the hardware store and the diner that feeds the night shift.
Here are the receipts.
- Amazon Web Services has invested more than $19.7 billion in Ohio, adding $6.2 billion to state GDP and supporting an average of more than 6,490 full-time equivalent jobs annually. Most aren’t Amazon employees. They’re Ohioans working for Ohio companies – utility crews, electrical contractors, telecommunications subs and construction trades.
- Microsoft’s Fairwater data center in Mount Pleasant employed more than 3,000 construction workers at peak – from electricians and pipefitters to iron workers and concrete crews. Once operational, the facility will have 500 full-time employees, expanding to 800 after the second data center is complete. Microsoft is pre-paying for its energy infrastructure, so neighbors’ rates don’t go up.
- In one year, Meta’s Richland Parish data center put $875 million into contracts with Louisiana businesses. More than 160 companies. Eighty-four percent local to Northeast Louisiana. Ouachita Parish sales tax collections jumped nearly 20 percent. The data center will support more than 500 operational jobs once completed.
Three states. Three different companies. Same story. Now multiply that across the more than 2,700 data centers announced or under construction across America, and you start to see the scale of what’s at stake for Main Street.
It doesn’t end when construction wraps. These facilities need ongoing maintenance, service and upgrades for decades. That means recurring contracts for the same local electricians, HVAC techs, landscapers, security firms and suppliers, year after year.
Karen Kerrigan, President and CEO of the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, said it plainly last month.
“Data center development supports contractors and a range of other local service providers – small businesses – that help bring projects online and keep them running. For communities trying to broaden their economic base, that is meaningful activity.”
America’s AI future is being constructed by tens of thousands of local small businesses. And that’s a Small Business Week success story worth sharing.