AWS Becker Minnesota data center, Becker, Minnesota

Amazon Web Services suspended its planned data center in Becker, Sherburne County, Minnesota, in May 2025, saying its timeline for permits and utility agreements had grown more uncertain than first projected. Amazon owns 348 acres in Becker and had considered up to 600 megawatts of standby generation for the site.

Two things changed first: Minnesota's Public Utilities Commission turned down Amazon's request over backup diesel generation, and the 2025 legislative session repealed the sales tax exemption on electricity for data centers. The same session extended the exemption on hardware and software to 2042 or 35 years, whichever is later, replacing the old 2042-or-20-years rule; Amazon soon announced data center plans in North Carolina and Pennsylvania instead.

City Administrator Greg Lerud said: "Amazon did tell the city that they are suspending their activities in Minnesota, which includes the property they own in Becker." The city sits beside the closing Sherco coal plant, which provides about $5 million of the school district's $12 million budget; the data center's tax income would have nearly filled that gap, Lerud had said. Mayor Mark Kolbinger called the cancellation a gut punch, comparing the lost project to Xcel Energy's arrival in the 1970s, which he said remade the community.

Representative Shane Mekeland estimated the project would have meant 6,000 to 8,000 union construction jobs over a decade and about 1,900 permanent jobs counting Microsoft's nearby plans. Amazon still owns the Becker land and says it continues to evaluate the location. If it returns, state regulators have ruled Amazon must prove it needs the 250 backup diesel generators it had planned, not be exempted from that requirement.