AWS files plans for 36 data center buildings at a former Pennsylvania coal plant

Amazon Web Services has filed a preliminary land development plan for a 36-building data center campus at the Homer City Energy Campus in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, about 50 miles east of Pittsburgh, DCD reported on October 6.

The site covers 1,100 acres in Center and Blacklick Townships. The 36 buildings would sit across six sites. Each would be two stories and 70 feet tall, with 225,000 square feet of floor space. That is about 8.1 million square feet in total.

Power from a new gas plant

The campus will draw most of its power from a 4.5GW natural gas plant that Homer City Redevelopment is building on the same site. More than 1GW of that plant's output is due to go back to the regional grid. The site was home to a 2GW coal plant that ran from 1969 until 2023.

Knighthead Capital Management is helping to finance the project. The filing as reported by DCD does not give a dollar figure for the campus or its power capacity in megawatts.

Timeline

AWS expects the campus to employ 1,500 to 2,000 people once it is running, with average salaries of $80,000 to $100,000. It has committed to a community benefits agreement with the area. DCD says Amazon has pledged about $20 billion in Pennsylvania across several campuses.

Why it matters to IT buyers

Projects like this are how the large clouds plan to meet AI demand, and power is the limit on how fast they can add capacity. Building next to a dedicated power plant means AWS does not have to wait for a grid connection of that size. For customers, the capacity arrives in stages over a decade, with the first phase only starting construction in December.