AWS Community Workforce Accelerator (Noah Berger/Getty Images)

Amazon taps the brakes on AI data center spending as economic jitters spread

Wells Fargo says the cloud provider is “digesting” a wave of aggressive lease-ups.

4/22/25 10:21AM

Amazon, the largest US cloud provider, is quietly hitting pause on its AI infrastructure expansion as heated economic uncertainty pushes tech biggies to scrutinize their billion-dollar bets on AI.

In a note Monday, Wells Fargo said Amazon has paused some data center lease talks for its cloud division, especially overseas. The firm said that while Amazon isn’t canceling deals, it is “digesting” a wave of aggressive lease-ups. “They’re tightening pre-lease windows and being more selective with large power cluster leases through 2026,” analysts wrote.

Amazon pushed back against the suggestion of a shift, noting how its cloud rivals like Meta, Google, and Oracle are still active in the space. “This is routine capacity management,” AWS data center VP Kevin Miller wrote on LinkedIn. “No fundamental changes to our expansion plans.” Amazon Web Services announced in January that it will spend an additional $11 billion in Georgia on data centers to power its cloud-computing services.

Still, Amazon isn’t the only one trimming back. Last month, Microsoft scrapped data center projects totaling 2 gigawatts of power in the US and Europe, citing oversupply. And in February, Google dropped a $1 billion Texas lease for its data center ops.

Max Knoblauch10h

After upsetting GOP senators, GM scraps its EV tax credit extension plan

Roughly a week after it was first reported, GM’s plan to extend the now expired $7,500 US federal EV tax credit to customers through a leasing program is no more.

Last week, Republican Senators Bernie Moreno (Ohio) and John Barrasso (Wyoming) wrote a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urging him to change the IRS rule that they said allowed automakers to game the law that ended the tax credit, “bilking” taxpayers.

Automakers GM and Ford, which each saw juiced-up EV sales ahead of the tax credit’s expiration, sought to extend the subsidy by using their financial arms to put down payments on electric vehicles already on their dealers’ lots. Those payments would qualify for the credit prior to its expiration, and the automakers would pass the savings along to lessees for several more months.

GM will now instead fund the incentive through the end of October without claiming the tax credit, Reuters reports.

Ford did not respond to a request for comment on whether it will similarly scrap its plans.

Exclusive: GM backtracks on plan to claim last-minute EV tax credits

GM will now instead fund the incentive through the end of October without claiming the tax credit, Reuters reports.

Ford did not respond to a request for comment on whether it will similarly scrap its plans.

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