Amazon acquires 400 acres near new Intel development in Ohio | Hacker News Reader

Amazon acquires 400 acres near new Intel development in Ohio

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135 pointsericmay136 comments

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.

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!

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.

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.

Careful what you wish for. You might end up with endless strip malls, cookie-cutter buildings, and concrete cathedrals instead of beautiful forests and neighborhoods with a soul.

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.

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).

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.

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?

Central Ohio isn’t. Every year we pretty much just get “tornado formed somewhere” and maybe a trail or or building gets knocked down. Not to say something can’t happen but it’s not very often compared to the plains and south.

Thanks, I'm a west coast gal, the mountains protect us from such concerns and too much horizon makes me nervous...

I’m a skier and if we weren’t tied to here b/c of family I think we’d be out west somewhere. With boring climate comes stability. We don’t really have any fires, hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, blizzards, or atmospheric rivers, or extreme heat/cold. But it’s so boring too. :(

I guess I take that back I mean it can get very hot or cold but it’s not sustained.

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

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

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

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

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.

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!

> 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?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Is this Delaware?

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

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?

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.

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.'"

"""

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).

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.

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

It's silly that's all I know

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

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.

> an economic situation that allows developers to benefit significantly without these benefits necessarily passing into the community

Does the development of that land not result in increased property taxes to fund local services?

Almost all of these deals come with asinine property tax abatements gifted by the local jurisdictions to the wealthiest companies on earth.

Sure enough - Intel's package there is worth a few hundred million: https://www.dispatch.com/story/business/2022/09/23/ohio-pois....

It's a game all of these firms play - have locales compete against each other (In some cases literally like the HQ2 debacle from Amazon) to see who can provide the largest package of tax incentives and subsidies and then hope nobody follows up on the absolute fantasy financial / Economic impact projections that were made.

The opposite. It is those of us who live here who are paying for the new water and sewer lines and roads and street lights and law enforcement. Not the developers nor the big corporations who are getting abatements.

You said "The Intel project is paying for highway development the power and sewer extensions and more."?

The Project, not Intel. It is Intel Project motivating the improvements which are making it possible for AWS, the box stores, the fast food joints, Google, and others to move in too. Intel the focal point for the money from the local governments, the state government, and the federal government to help make this happen.

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.

People always forget that there's plenty of land and you don't need to engage in greenfield really. You just need to build up. Keeping the ecosystems intact is much more important than keeping around a poorly insulated tinderbox of a home that was built in 3 weeks by unskilled laborers in 1935 around until the end of time. Ecosystems take thousands of years sometimes to develop all of their organic connectivity that we routinely destroy in no time at all.

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.

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

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

In Ohio your property taxes get reassessed periodically. So as the local market goes up so does you tax burden. People really do get priced out of their home, sometimes priced out of the area entirely, especially if they are living on a fixed income.

Maybe, but that's not always the case. In the US, powers of eminent domain have at times been delegated to private entities. If there's a clear public benefit for seizure of land, sometimes the landowners don't have much of a choice.

https://archive.ph/VssmA

Sounds like us-east-2d is coming.

Thanks for sharing the non-paywalled article!

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?

"Ask HN: Why did HN get rid of the “web” button?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34468746

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.)

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...

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

They almost certainly have income tax - I can't speak to it though (we chose a different suburb nearby). Many of the cities do have an income tax and property taxes are quite high (I pay $1k/mo on a mid six figure home).

The full-load is still ~half of CA though, in my experience

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

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

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...

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.

Probably more about utilities/logistics of supporting both plants.

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

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.

Power availability?

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...

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.

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?

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...

Is Ohio becoming tech heartland?

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Healthcare, government, education too.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

Always has been

Ohio invented outer space after all.

The state of Ohio has birthed more astronauts than any other state. Mostly because people are so desperate to get out of Ohio they’ll go to space to escape. UofM has the most astronauts that made it to the moon. And a flag on the moon.

Good natured ribbing :)

> UofM has the most astronauts that made it to the moon

The Wikipedia page suggests that the US Naval Academy has had 3 graduates walk on the moon with UofM, Purdue and West Point all having 2. Good company to be in, for sure.

I have many extended family members in Ohio. What I've heard is that most feel like public education is going down hill. It used to be that any sufficiently advanced high school student would get to attend classes at nearby colleges for free (and receive credit) if their local school didn't have a course they were qualified for. The current program has been very watered down and is underfunded, so very few kids actually get to take advantage of it. Just one of many negatives I've heard over the years.

Like in most other red states these days, the GOP controlled statehouse is trying to ruin public education further by passing don't say gay bills or preventing the teaching of the racist history of this country. One can't really be optimistic until the gerrymandering situation is fixed, because as it stands the republicans cannot ever lose their majority.

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

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.

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

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

This is what the layoff money was used for

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