Amazon responds to data center backlash, says it no longer uses NDAs
Amazon responds to data center backlash, says it no longer uses NDAs
亚马逊回应数据中心争议，称不再使用保密协议 (NDA)
Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman said the company has stopped using nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) in its dealings with government agencies as it seeks approval to build new data centers. Garman’s statement is just one sentence in a longer blog post in which he tried to push back against widespread suspicion of data centers, and to make the case that they’re actually good for communities. 亚马逊云科技 (AWS) 首席执行官 Matt Garman 表示，该公司在寻求政府批准建设新数据中心时，已停止在与政府机构的往来中使用保密协议 (NDA)。Garman 的这一表态仅是他一篇长博文中的一句话，他在文中试图反驳公众对数据中心的广泛质疑，并论证数据中心实际上对社区是有益的。
NDAs are a significant piece of the broader data center backlash. For example, environmental activist Erin Brockovich recently said that the number one complaint she’s heard about data centers is transparency, with these projects following a common pattern: “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.” 保密协议是引发数据中心争议的重要因素之一。例如，环保活动家 Erin Brockovich 最近表示，她听到的关于数据中心的首要抱怨就是透明度问题。这些项目通常遵循一种模式：“在获得许可后才宣布项目，开发商不回电话，地方官员在邻居们知情前就签署了保密协议。”
As a result of that backlash, New York announced a one-year moratorium on permits for large data centers, and according to Garman, there are more than 100 data center moratoriums currently being considered across the United States. “If these measures are enacted, the U.S. could be writing its own losing ticket to this race, and the consequences would last generations,” Garman claimed. “As a country, we can’t afford to find ourselves in that position.” 由于这种抵制情绪，纽约州宣布对大型数据中心的许可实施为期一年的暂停令。据 Garman 称，目前美国各地正在考虑中的数据中心暂停令已超过 100 项。“如果这些措施付诸实施，美国可能会在这场竞赛中自断前程，其后果将持续几代人，” Garman 声称，“作为一个国家，我们承担不起这样的后果。”
Garman also attempted to puncture what he said are four big myths around data centers: that they consume too much water, that they increase electricity costs, that they emit an enormous amount of pollution, and that they don’t provide any benefits to their communities. Garman 还试图打破他所说的围绕数据中心的四大误区：即它们消耗过多的水资源、增加电费成本、排放大量污染物，以及它们无法为社区提供任何利益。
Pointing to an Amazon report about its own water usage, Garman said that “direct data center water consumption” only accounts for 0.5% of all industrial water usage in the United States, “orders of magnitude less than golf courses, almond farming, and many other industries.” Nvidia recently said its new cooling system eliminates “pretty much all water usage” inside the data center, but those claims — like Amazon’s — seem to ignore the broader water usage involved in electricity generation and chip manufacturing. Garman 指出亚马逊关于自身用水量的报告称，“数据中心的直接用水量”仅占美国所有工业用水量的 0.5%，“比高尔夫球场、杏仁种植业和其他许多行业低几个数量级。”英伟达最近表示，其新型冷却系统消除了数据中心内部“几乎所有的用水量”，但这些说法——就像亚马逊的一样——似乎忽略了电力生产和芯片制造过程中涉及的更广泛的用水量。
Scientists have also said they need to study data centers’ water and energy usage independently, since there are no federal or state requirements around how tech companies report this data. As for electricity rates, Garman said they’ve only gone up in some states with large numbers of data centers, while they’ve gone down or at least grown more slowly in others. And he argued, “In instances where energy rates are going up, it’s primarily because the grid is old and hasn’t been invested in and expanded before the demand arrived.” 科学家们也表示，他们需要独立研究数据中心的用水和用能情况，因为目前联邦或州政府对于科技公司如何报告这些数据尚无明确要求。至于电价，Garman 表示，电价仅在一些拥有大量数据中心的州有所上涨，而在其他州则有所下降或至少增长得更慢。他辩称：“在能源价格上涨的情况下，主要是因为电网老化，且在需求到来之前没有进行投资和扩建。”
On the other hand, an independent watchdog said recently data centers were the main culprit behind a 76% year-over-year price increase on America’s largest electrical grid. When it comes to pollution — an issue that the NAACP is currently suing Elon Musk’s SpaceX/xAI over — Garman complained that critics focus on the maximum amount of pollution allowed under data center permits. 另一方面，一家独立监督机构最近表示，数据中心是美国最大电网电价同比上涨 76% 的主要罪魁祸首。谈到污染问题——这也是美国全国有色人种协进会 (NAACP) 目前起诉埃隆·马斯克的 SpaceX/xAI 的原因——Garman 抱怨称，批评者只关注数据中心许可中允许的最大污染排放量。
For example, a planned Amazon data center in Texas is permitted to release 33 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, which is more than any other power plant in the United States. “The truth is data center generators almost never run,” Garman said. “They’re idle 99.9% of the time (they run roughly 10 hours per year, mostly for required maintenance testing).” 例如，亚马逊在德克萨斯州计划建设的一个数据中心获准每年排放 3300 万吨二氧化碳，这比美国任何其他发电厂的排放量都要多。“事实是，数据中心的备用发电机几乎从不运行，” Garman 说，“它们 99.9% 的时间处于闲置状态（每年大约运行 10 小时，主要是为了必要的维护测试）。”
As for the community benefits, this is where Garman wrote, “We no longer use nondisclosure agreements with the government agencies we work with on our projects.” Plus, he said, “Over the past three years, Amazon has contributed more than $1 billion to communities across the U.S. in which we have a meaningful data center presence.” 至于社区利益，Garman 写道：“我们不再与在项目合作中的政府机构签署保密协议。”此外，他还表示：“在过去三年中，亚马逊已向我们在美国各地拥有重要数据中心业务的社区贡献了超过 10 亿美元。”
Will this be enough to quell community suspicion? Perhaps not — Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei recently argued that the AI backlash is “fundamentally a crisis of trust,” where people assume governments and tech companies are always “cooking up some new way to screw them over.” Similarly, writer Jasmine Sun noted that when data center opponents are presented with the tech companies’ arguments, their response is usually, “I don’t believe them.” 这足以平息社区的怀疑吗？或许不能。Anthropic 首席执行官 Dario Amodei 最近指出，针对人工智能的抵制“从根本上是一场信任危机”，人们认为政府和科技公司总是在“密谋某种新的方式来坑害他们”。同样，作家 Jasmine Sun 也指出，当数据中心的反对者听到科技公司的辩解时，他们的反应通常是：“我不相信他们。”