Data Center Census

New Carlisle, St. Joseph County, IN

Project Rainier (AWS New Carlisle campus)

Also known as Amazon Web Services New Carlisle data center campus

OperatingInitial buildings operating since Oct 2025; campus build-out continues
  1. Rumored
  2. Proposed
  3. Approved
  4. Under construction
  5. Operating

Amazon Web Services' campus in the Indiana Enterprise Center near New Carlisle is an $11 billion investment and one of the data center sites behind Project Rainier, the AI compute cluster that Anthropic uses to train and run Claude. AWS brought Project Rainier online in October 2025 with nearly 500,000 Trainium2 chips. St. Joseph County approved a tax abatement in 2024, and some county council members have since asked Amazon to voluntarily give back part of it.

Key facts

Size & schedule

Site size600 acres [2]
600+ acquired as of Aug 2024
Site size1,200 acres [8]
Source excerpt
“Once the other 14 of the project's 32 buildings are built on its 1,200-acre New Carlisle campus, the development can consume up to 2.25 gigawatts, enough to power more than 1.4 million homes, or around half of the state of Indiana's residential households.”
Buildings22 [2]
potential total on campus over 10–15 years (2024 estimate)
Stated investment$11 billion [1]
Permanent jobs (promised)1,000 [1]
at least 1,000 per state announcement; county approval cited ~400 full-time
Construction jobs600 [2]
approximate, per county approval coverage

Power

UtilityIndiana Michigan Power (I&M) [8]
Source excerpt
“Amazon wrote that its data center would receive power from I&M's regional grid.”

Water

CoolingPer AWS, no cooling water used October–March, minimal use April–September [4]

Money & incentives

Tax incentivesCounty: 50% property tax abatement over 10 years, 85% on data center shells over 35 years, $143M community enhancement agreement; State: 50-year data center sales tax exemption plus up to ~$105M in credits/grants [2]
Tax abatement value$9 billion [8]
stated as property tax abatements totaling over $9 billion over 35 years
Source excerpt
“St. Joseph County has granted property tax abatements totaling over $9 billion over 35 years for AWS's data center.”
Abatement term35 years [8]
Source excerpt
“St. Joseph County has granted property tax abatements totaling over $9 billion over 35 years for AWS's data center.”

Figures are as stated by the cited source. Where sources disagree, each figure is shown.

Timeline

  1. Indiana governor announces AWS $11 billion data center campus near New Carlisle [1]

  2. St. Joseph County Council approves tax abatement, 7-2 [2]

  3. AWS activates Project Rainier; cluster fully operational with ~500,000 Trainium2 chips [5]

  4. The Department of Energy ordered the data center to cut 50 MW from the grid; backup diesel generators ran and cold weather disrupted pollution controls on five of them [8]

  5. Four Republican council members ask Amazon to voluntarily return part of its tax break [6]

  6. Amazon holds ribbon-cutting for campus administration building [6]

  7. Council Republicans propose asking Amazon for $7 million; Amazon says it is not interested in revisiting the abatement [7]

Issues raised

  • Some county council members object to the size of the abatement (nearly $38M abated in the first half of 2026), contrasting it with Microsoft forgoing a break in Granger [6][7]

Sources

  1. Gov. Holcomb announces Amazon Web Services plans to invest $11B to create a new data center campus in Northern Indiana
    Indiana Economic Development Corporation · Apr 25, 2024 · government
  2. St. Joseph County leaders approve $11bn Amazon data center in Indiana
    DatacenterDynamics · Aug 14, 2024 · news
  3. Amazon's 'Project Rainier' starts operations in New Carlisle
    WSBT · Oct 31, 2025 · news
  4. AWS activates Project Rainier: One of the world's largest AI compute clusters comes online
    Amazon · 2025 · company
  5. Project Rainer: AWS, Anthropic Complete Massive AI Supercomputing Cluster
    Data Center Knowledge · Oct 29, 2025 · news
  6. Council members asking Amazon to pay despite tax abatement
    WVPE · Jun 24, 2026 · news
  7. Council Republicans ask Amazon to give back some data center tax break
    WVPE · Aug 10, 2026 · news
  8. Power Needs, Pollution, Local Politics Collide At Amazon Data Center
    InkFreeNews.com (Indianapolis Star / Notre Dame Gallivan Program) · Aug 14, 2026 · news