Megan McCarty Carino

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Megan McCarty Carino.

Tech giants are estimated to have spent almost $400 billion in capital expenditures this year, mostly to build data centers for AI.

Just one of these massive facilities can have a price tag in the billions of dollars, and many states want in on that spending spree.

37 states have some sort of incentive program to attract data centers with the hope of bringing a boost to their local economies.

They're giving away hundreds of millions in tax exemptions, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Many of these policies predated the AI boom, but the current data center frenzy has intensified the competition and concerns about whether states will see a payoff.

We spoke with Nicholas Miller, policy associate at NCSL, to learn more.

And so among those, which are sort of the most attractive and what states are sort of going the hardest on this?

And so what do states get out of these deals?

What are they asking for in return?

We'll be right back.

You're listening to Marketplace Tech.

I'm Megan McCarty Carino.

We're back with Nicholas Miller, policy associate at the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Tell me more about the jobs issue.

What kinds of guarantees are often negotiated in these kinds of agreements or, you know, requirements for upskilling or training?

Tell me more about how that figures in.

That is such a striking figure, 20 jobs.

And I saw in some other figures that sometimes the jobs range, the ongoing jobs at these data centers range from 5 to 20.