Amazon engineers in Seattle slam employer for building AI data centers while laying off 30,000 staffers

A group of Amazon engineers appeared at Seattle City Council hearings on Wednesday to throw their support behind efforts to regulate the development of giant AI data centers in the area, which are getting constructed while their employer is engaged in mass layoffs. "It's been reported that this year, Amazon is spending $200 billion dollars on capital, with most of it going to data centers and AI," Patrick Schloesser, a software engineer at Amazon Web Services, said at a hearing. "Microsoft is spending $190 billion. Meanwhile, the leaders at my company have laid off 30,000 corporate employees in the last eight months. What that tells me is that Big Tech is desperate to build as much compute capacity as it can, as fast as it can." Representatives from Amazon didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Officials in Seattle voted to approve a one-year moratorium on new large-scale artificial intelligence data centers to allow time for the city to regulate the projects. The proposal came after four developers approached a local utility provider to pitch building five large scale facilities in Seattle. Two of those developers have since withdrawn their proposals following public outcry, the Seattle Times reported. Seattle joins a growing list of cities and counties that are seeking to place limits on the explosive growth of AI data centers. …