Amazon has recently followed the example of Microsoft by deciding not to use confidentiality agreements ( NDA ) when negotiating with local governments regarding data centers.

In the latest episode of the Equity podcast on TechCrunch, Sean O Kane, Rebeccan Bellan and I discussed this announcement regarding Amazon. This statement appears in a longer blog post, where Amazon attempts to explain that data centers are actually beneficial to the community.

Rebecca is skeptical about whether the recent wave of data center construction suspensions will have a lasting impact, especially since these suspensions usually only last for one to two years, while "these data centers are not expected to be put into operation until two, three, four, or five years from now." However, I argue that supporters of data centers are indeed concerned.

Sean believes that one of the important reasons for the rebound sentiment is poor communication within the industry.

Sean O ’ Kane :"What we've seen, amidst the numerous controversies and backlash surrounding AI and data centers, is that this industry is very poor at explaining itself, and they are clearly frustrated by the fact that most people cannot imagine a world where these things would be useful to them."

The following is an excerpt from our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity.

Sean O ’ Kane :This is quite interesting, as it’s somewhat buried within blog posts and is part of a larger narrative that Amazon wants to convey. I understand why they didn’t put it at the beginning, but in my opinion, this is precisely the root cause of many of the problems that the tech industry is facing today in AI, especially in the area of data centers.

There is a lot to say about whether people should worry about data centers affecting property values, electricity costs, local water usage, and whether these issues are truly significant or just exaggerated. However, I believe that a large part of this can be traced back to the fact that many of these projects are actually negotiated in secret. Sometimes the public knows that it is a data center, but they have no idea who will end up using it or who might occupy it at any given time.

This is a long-standing issue in the tech industry. I always think back to the mid-2010s, during the period of rapid expansion for Uber. Uber frequently employed such tactics when dealing with local governments at that time. I remember working at The Verge back then, and one of our freelance writers wrote a report about a city near Orlando where Uber was attempting to negotiate tax subsidies to cover the cost of public transportation for people after using Uber.

The whole thing was conducted through secret negotiations. Not only that, but this in itself is quite disheartening; moreover, due to the confidentiality, Uber will become increasingly bold and make more demands.

So more transparency is needed in this regard. I'm glad that Amazon has taken this action. Let's wait and see if it will indeed have a positive impact, but for now, people's positions are quite firm.

Rebecca Bellan:Yes, I’m really curious about what impact this will have, and whether it will lead to delays in the community’s progress, or even prevent the company from building any necessary infrastructure. I’ve heard from people who deal with data center affairs every day that there have been quite a number of recent suspensions – one of which, ironically, occurred in San Francisco – but these usually only last for one or two years.

But these data centers will not be put into operation until two, three, four, or five years from now. Due to various reasons such as site selection and financing, the entire construction progress will be significantly delayed. Of course, if the opposition continues, it may have an impact, but I often wonder how effective this kind of political opposition really is in this regard.

Anthony Ha:The suspension order that I am most familiar with was in New York. I believe it was a one-year suspension order, targeting permits for large-scale projects. [Strictly speaking, it would continue until the state government completed the environmental review process, which is expected to take about a year.]

So there is already some leeway left from the beginning. Moreover, such measures are usually presented in this way: "It's not that we think data centers are bad, so we shouldn't do this, but we need time to study it." With that, they have a lot of room to say later, "In fact, we have decided that this is very good, and we like it."

However, as you can see, the people who are trying to build these data centers are indeed very concerned. This is also why there are such almost out-of-control tweets from individuals like Trump or David Sacks. How long the community resistance will last and to what extent it will go is something only time will tell, but I truly believe that they are worried.

It is also worth noting that Microsoft announced a similar decision earlier this year, which was to stop using NDA. I don't think simply canceling NDA will make those who oppose these data centers immediately say, "Great, then let's build them, I agree." However, I believe the starting point for dialogue should be, "We don't even know what you are actually doing, because you have negotiated everything in secret." So this seems like a good first step.

Sean:The bigger problem is actually one of communication, right? I think this is an issue that exists throughout the tech industry, but in today's era of "directly facing users" and "you don't need to talk to the media, as the media is already dead," this problem is particularly severe.

I don't want to emphasize this point over and over again, as we are in the media industry and still consider ourselves to have influence. However, from the numerous controversies and backlash surrounding AI and data centers, it is clear that the industry is very poor at explaining itself. Moreover, they seem to be frustrated by the fact that most people cannot imagine a world where these things would be useful to them. This is often due to insufficient technical capabilities, and in part, it is because they have not managed to explain these concepts clearly enough.

I wrote a report last week about how it has been a year since we first heard Tesla vigorously promote its mission, which was initially called “sustainable abundance” and is now referred to as “amazing abundance.” What strikes me as absurd is that, even after a year, the company still hasn’t provided a clear definition of this concept. Especially considering they released a multi-page PDF to elaborate on it when making this announcement, even the most ardent supporters of Tesla criticize Elon Musk and Tesla for being too vague in their descriptions. It reads like the nonsense spoken by large language models.

Anthony:One thing this reminds me of is this kind of narrative, and there was a time when this idea was really forced upon us – “This is inevitable. AI drives the future; either you keep up or you’ll be left behind.”

Obviously, this future is advancing rapidly in many aspects, but in some key areas, obstacles have indeed been encountered. One thing I really like is that this feeling has changed to: “No, you actually have to provide evidence for it.” You can’t just say, “This is the future, so shut up.”

Speaking more specifically about Tesla and the concept of “abundance,” what really shocked me was not that they hadn’t defined “abundance” yet, but rather that they made such a commitment from the very beginning. I believe this illustrates how peculiar our relationship is with Tesla, especially with those who are deeply committed to Elon. The focus is no longer on whether the company can sell a large number of cars, but on its vision to reshape society. Or at least, that’s the vision that has been instilled in them.