How Amazon’s Data Hubs Are Transforming Small-Town America

Summary

Podcast Summary: WSJ Tech News Briefing

Episode: How Amazon’s Data Hubs Are Transforming Small-Town America
Date: November 4, 2025
Host: Katie Dayton
Featured Guest: David Uberti (WSJ Reporter)

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Overview

In this episode, WSJ’s Tech News Briefing explores how Amazon’s massive data centers are reshaping the economy and landscape of Umatilla County, a rural region in northeast Oregon. The show unpacks why small towns have become crucial infrastructure for the tech and AI boom, what it means for locals, and the larger implications for both communities and the cloud-computing giants. The episode also features a lighthearted detour into flying cars before diving deep into Amazon’s economic impact.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Flying Car Detour: EVTOLs

• Segment (00:19-04:58)
• Brief discussion of flying car innovation, specifically the ultralight EVTOLs from Pivotal, which are more like large drones than cars or planes.
• Notable insight into regulatory barriers, technological limitations, and user experience.

Dan Neal (WSJ Auto Columnist) on EVTOL safety:
“The helicopter is notorious... for a couple of reasons. One, they're loud. Two, they have what's called a single point failure design... The advantage of the rotorcraft... is that there is a certain amount of redundancy built into these vehicles with multiple rotors that can take you to the ground. The one I flew... can get you safely to the ground on as few as four.” (01:28)

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2. Amazon’s Data Centers and Umatilla County

Background: Why Umatilla?

• Umatilla, OR: Once an agriculture-dominated and economically struggling rural region.
• Reason for Selection by Amazon: Abundance of land, water, and hydroelectric power thanks to the Columbia River—a perfect combination for data center needs.
• Clustering Effect: Building data centers close together improves the speed and efficiency of digital services.

David Uberti:
“Umatilla and the communities nearby, they have three things that data centers really need in abundance. Land, water and power... And the Columbia River Basin has an incredible amount of hydroelectric power. And then finally some of that water from that river is used to help cool some of these facilities...” (07:18)

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Economic and Social Impact

• Construction Boom:

  • Surge of relatively higher-paying construction jobs.
  • Ripple benefits to local bars, restaurants, and businesses supporting construction.
  • Noted trend: Most full-time data center jobs (post-construction) are limited and often require specialized skills or degrees not typically found locally.

• Local Workforce Dynamics:

  • Many local residents—often from migrant backgrounds or with limited higher education—face barriers to securing long-term roles at the data centers.
  • Amazon sometimes hires from outside the region, importing specialized tradespeople and technicians.

David Uberti:
“Amazon has really injected a incredible amount of relatively higher paying jobs into Umatilla county. And mostly these have been construction jobs so far... Generally speaking, those types of jobs, technicians in particular, are better paying jobs than you would have in Umatilla county otherwise... They might need a lot of electricians, tradespeople who have very specialized skill sets. They're not necessarily hiring for a lot of these roles within Umatilla County.” (08:22)

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Changing Local Culture

• Community Reactions:
  • Initial skepticism and curiosity, especially in local bars and restaurants, due to the secrecy surrounding Amazon’s operations (NDAs for workers and some local officials).
  • Gradually, Amazon's community presence has increased, with involvement in local schools and events, although secrecy remains.
  • Some residual “us versus them” sentiment persists—small-town locals versus a global tech giant.

Memorable Anecdote:
David Uberti:
“I spoke to this woman, Tammy, who runs a bar called Neighbor Dudes. She told me a hilarious story about how she started seeing all of these new people... They wouldn’t tell her anything about what was going on or what brought them to town. And they essentially said, we have NDAs, we can’t talk about it. And she compared all of this to Area 51.” (09:48)

Katie Dayton & Paul Testa (impersonating locals):
“And you go, where do you work?” (10:14)
“And they wouldn't say anything.” (10:14)
“They just literally wouldn't say anything.” (10:16)
“They would just like look at you like, oh, you work at Amazon.” (10:19)
“And they're like, I didn't say that. I was like, we know it's Amazon.” (10:22)

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Larger Implications & The Future

• Sustainability and Economic Dependency:
  • Amazon is planning to double data center capacity, reflecting a broader industry arms race.
  • Potential threats if demand falters: As these data hubs cluster in a few rural communities, those regions become economically dependent on continued cloud growth.
  • If the boom slows or reverses, the local economies could face rapid decline.

David Uberti:
“If five years from now or 10 years from now, it turns out that a lot of these AI applications are not profitable... that could beget a huge strategic change in some of these hyperscalers’ spending plans. And because of the concentration of a lot of this investment, any sort of strategic change like that would have huge implications for a place like Umatilla.” (11:09)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the isolation and rapid transformation:

  “There is something of a standoffish relationship between some of these residents who are from this very, very small town and one of the richest corporations in the world.” (10:48, David Uberti)

• On the shifting economic fabric:

  “A place that was once defined by agriculture and low-wage jobs is now at the heart of the global digital economy.” (Paraphrase of discussion, 06:38–11:53)

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Important Timestamps

• Flying cars/EVTOLs segment: 00:19–04:58
• Introduction to Umatilla’s story: 05:51
• Why Umatilla for Amazon’s data centers? 07:18
• Impact on jobs/local economy: 08:22
• Local reactions and the ‘Area 51’ anecdote: 09:48–10:48
• Strategic risks & future prospects: 11:09

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Episode Tone & Style

The episode maintains an engaging, slightly witty tone—balancing boots-on-the-ground reporting with colorful anecdotes from locals. Both host and guest are conversational, presenting complex tech issues through human stories and memorable, relatable quotes.

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Summary for New Listeners

This episode offers a revealing look at how the AI and cloud boom is changing rural America in unexpected ways. Umatilla County, once an agricultural backwater, is now at the economic vortex of digital infrastructure expansion—thanks largely to Amazon’s hunger for data capacity. The story is both one of opportunity and caution, highlighting new jobs and community change, but also surfacing issues of economic dependency, secrecy, and cultural clash as the world’s richest tech firms take root in small-town soil.

Transcript

[Paul Testa]

Digital transformation is revolutionizing how patients interact with the healthcare system. Join NYU Langone Health at the break to hear from Dr. Paul A. Testa, the organization's chief health informatics officer, about how innovation is improving the patient experience.

[Katie Dayton]

Welcome to Tech News briefing. It's Tuesday, November 4th. I'm Katie Dayton for the Wall Street Journal. Today we're checking in on one of the most anticipated inventions of our times, the flying. Let's just say it's not exactly what George Jetson was driving. Then we fly over to northeast Oregon, where the building of Amazon data centers is beginning to transform the local economy. But first, there aren't many modes of high tech transport that capture the imagination like the flying car. And a new entrant from aircraft maker Pivotal feels even more futuristic than most. Its electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles, known as EVTOLs, are super lightweight and include just one seat. And they look more like drones than cars or planes. My colleague and WSJ reporter Bell Lynn spoke to the Journal's auto columnist Dan Neal about his experience test flying the Pivotal's black fly vehicle.

[Bell Lynn]

Let's start by talking about what exactly these vehicles are. How are the ultralight EVTOLs different from a helicopter?

[Dan Neal]

It is an ultralight aircraft and it is different from a helicopter in a lot of ways. The helicopter is notorious as an invention for a couple of reasons. One, they're loud. Two, they have what's called a single point failure design, so that if the rotor nut goes off on a helicopter, there's no redundancy. The advantage of the rotorcraft, and probably one of the reasons that it's regarded as a safer way for regular people to fly, is that there is a certain amount of redundancy built into these vehicles with multiple rotors that can take you to the ground. The one I flew, it has eight rotors and it can get you safely to the ground on as few as four.

[Bell Lynn]

What are the limitations then of a vehicle like an evtol?

[Dan Neal]

Honestly, the technology has virtually unlimited potential in its space. This is one of the reasons why when I was talking to the Pivotal people, I was saying, well, look, you know, better batteries and better motors are on the way. You know, whatever nominal values you're promising people today, 20 minutes of flight time, you could easily see that going to an hour or more with lighter, stronger batteries and more efficient electric systems. The restrictions are legal and regulatory for the most part, but the most important thing is to keep it under the maximum wage, which is like £254. It has to stay below that. Otherwise it incurs a whole new and much more strict regime of rules. So the limitations are mostly weight. If it didn't have that limitation, if they were Talking about a 500 pound vehicle, it would be a drastically different kind of proposition. And I think probably could do a lot more.

[Bell Lynn]

Right. And you said that there's a maximum flight time of about 20 minutes with.

[Dan Neal]

About 10 minutes of a backup, like an emergency.

[Bell Lynn]

What are some of the sort of special risks or dangers associated with an evtol?

[Dan Neal]

For one thing, it's very sensitive to wind and weather. It can't fly at night. And the dangers are because flying is not done by a whole lot of people. Now we're looking at a technology that addresses a far wider, broader mainstream audience. So the risk is the overpopulation of these uncontrolled airspaces. Now, the FAA says we right now have very few rules regarding these vehicles. But if you start to draw a lot of public attention, ire and scorn and press, then we will step in and we will regulate this space. So right now, everybody's sort of approaching this science space very carefully because they can't afford a lot of public incidents. Otherwise the FAA and the public themselves will lose confidence.

[Bell Lynn]

Dan, you actually flew in VTOL yourself. So tell us, what was it like?

[Dan Neal]

Yeah, it was a long, long journey to get to the actual machine. It's a very simple thing to fly, but in order to fly it, you have to train in virtual reality. I have motion sickness and this thing just wiped me out. Then you get into the flyer. It's very comfortable and easy. The first time it goes up in the air, you know, it kind of feels like you've been snatched off the earth, but it's very easy to get used to. And after a while, it was, you know, super fun. It's not physically demanding because the thing doesn't move very fast. And even, you know, people like me with real bad motion sickness, once they get in the vehicle, the motion sickness doesn't apply. I didn't feel anything but joy once I was up in the air.

[Katie Dayton]

That was our auto columnist Dan Neal, interviewed by Bell. Lynn. Coming up, how a tiny region in the north of Oregon got swept up in the AI. Boom. That's after the break.

[Paul Testa]

One way AI is transforming the patient experience is through what's known as ambient documentation. NYU Langone's chief health Informatics officer, Paul Testa explains.

If we have a conversation, the system can create the note by simply listening. But then it is, I think you probably should come back to me in four weeks. Unless these three things happen, that's where the ambient gets really cool. So it's going to queue up orders, it executes referrals, that's all doable today.

[Katie Dayton]

When we think of the individuals and businesses benefiting from the AI boom, we tend to picture them in major tech and finance cities like San Francisco and New York. But some rural cities and regions are getting a boost too, as they transform into sites for the gigantic data centers used to power artificial intelligence. Goldman Sachs estimates that 72% of all data center capacity is in just 1% of U.S. counties. One of those is Umatilla in northern Oregon, a place that's in the midst of an Amazon backed economic transformation. Our reporter David Uberti was on the ground to report on what that looks like in practice. So Dave, your story centres on the region of Umatilla. Can you describe what this place is like?

[David Uberti]

Umatilla county is this community about three hours east of Portland, it's on the Columbia river, has really bountiful potato harvests. It's a big agricultural community, but until about a decade, decade ago, there wasn't a lot going on economically. A lot of people worked low paying jobs in the fields. There was big food processing plants to make french fries. But there essentially wasn't a lot of opportunity for people there who wanted to have a higher paying job, maybe buy a house, et cetera, until Amazon came along.

[Katie Dayton]

Can you talk me through Umatillo's relationship with Amazon? Why was this city in particular chosen as the site for these huge data centers?

[David Uberti]

So Umatilla and the communities nearby, they have three things that data centers really need in abundance. Land, water and power. These things are huge once they're constructed. A typical data center is the size of multiple football fields and they have multiple buildings within each campus. They hoover up amazing amounts of electricity. And the Columbia River Basin has an incredible amount of hydroelectric power. And then finally some of that water from that river is used to help cool some of these facilities at the same time. So Umatilla and Hermiston and Morrow county next door really were an ideal place for Amazon to build out this hub. And what's more, it helps to cluster data centers very closely together. Some of the communication between computer applications that you and I take for granted, those things work faster, say for video calls, for example, if the data that are held in data centers are actually closer together.

[Katie Dayton]

So the size of these data centers, obviously that means they've overhauled the landscape. Can you talk us through the ways in which they've overhauled the local Economy too.

[David Uberti]

Amazon has really injected a incredible amount of relatively higher paying jobs into Umatilla county. And mostly these have been construction jobs so far. And it has a lot of indirect benefits to surrounding bars, restaurants and what have you. And all of the local businesses that support construction. Those are some of the ripple effects that you see from data center development. These things are also notorious for not employing a big number of people full time after construction ends. And Amazon doesn't really share a lot of data about how much each campus employs in terms of security guards and technicians. But generally speaking, those types of jobs, technicians in particular, are better paying jobs than you would have in Umatilla county otherwise. But that is part of the rub here as well. You have this sort of low income community, a lot of migrants, a lot of Spanish speakers. They are now competing for jobs that oftentimes require college degrees. So in some cases you have Amazon who needs a lot of technicians. They might need a lot of electricians, tradespeople who have very specialized skill sets. They're not necessarily hiring for a lot of these roles within Umatilla County. In some cases, they're reaching far outside the city and county limits and bringing a lot of newcomers in.

[Katie Dayton]

So bearing that in mind, how friendly are the locals, especially those that, you know, run the hospitality businesses? How friendly are they towards what's happening here?

[David Uberti]

Well, they've definitely gotten more friendly over the course of time as this construction boom has continued. I spoke to this woman, Tammy, who runs a bar called Neighbor Dudes. She told me a hilarious story about how she started seeing all of these new people, all these fresh faces coming in to her local watering hole. And they wouldn't tell her anything about what was going on or what brought them to town. And they essentially said, we have NDAs, we can't talk about it. And she compared all of this to Area 51.

[Paul Testa]

And you go, where do you work?

[Katie Dayton]

And they wouldn't say anything.

[Paul Testa]

They just literally wouldn't say anything.

[Katie Dayton]

And they would just like look at.

[Paul Testa]

You like, oh, you work at Amazon.

[David Uberti]

And they're like, I didn't say that. I was like, we know it's Amazon. She thought it was super hilarious. But those tended to be Amazon employees or contractors. And over the course of time, as Amazon has continued building, they've kind of become more public facing within the community. They're more present in the local school system, they work a lot with local officials, et cetera. But at the same time, a lot of those local officials still have NDAs about their work with Amazon. So it is while Amazon does have a improving relationship with the community, like, to say the least, there's a lot of benefits of this boom overall. There is something of a standoffish relationship between some of these residents who are from this very, very small town and one of the richest corporations in the world.

[Katie Dayton]

Are there other, bigger implications to towns like Umatilla? What does Amazon have to say?

[David Uberti]

As you saw on their earnings call last week, they are trying to double their data center capacity in the next couple of years. And like many other large tech firms, it is full speed ahead to try to build this out as much as possible. The question, if you're creating this sort of supply of data centers or of computing power, is what the demand will ultimately be and whether that demand will end up being profitable. So if five years from now or 10 years from now, it turns out that a lot of these AI applications are not profitable to the extent that people think they might be now, that could beget a huge strategic change in some of these hyperscalers spending plans. And because of the concentration of a lot of this investment, any sort of strategic change like that would have huge implications for a place like Umatilla.

[Katie Dayton]

That was WSJ reporter Dave Ubarti. And that's it for Tech News Briefing. Today's show was produced by Julie Chang with supervising producer Katie Ferguson. I'm Katie Dayton for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back later this morning with TMB Tech Minute. Thanks for listening.

[Paul Testa]

For patients, the benefits of healthcare innovation can be felt in even the basic task of making a doctor's appointment. Here again is NYU Langone's Paul Testa.

What we are seeing now is these tools are helping patients understand what their first, next best step is in their care journey. If we can make sure we have a right match with the the right surgeon for the right problem and the right patient in the right location, all that coordination is a digital matrix that we are doing now.

To learn more about healthcare innovation at NYU Langone Health, Please visit NYU langone.org Custom content from WSJ is a unit of the Wall Street Journal Advertising Department. The Wall Street Journal news organization was not involved in the creation of this content.