Hi I’m Jeff Rea Your host for Economic Outlook.

Thanks for joining us.

As we explore the trends, the people and the ideas shaping the region's economy.

We’re back tonight with an hour long special presentation about data centers In recent months few topics have generated as much discussion in our communities.

Supporters point to new investment, tax revenue and the digital infrastructure needed to power our modern economy.

Others are asking important questions about energy use, water resources, land developmen and long-term community impact.

Tonight, we’re taking a closer look at data centers what they are, why companies are building them in our region, and what it could mean for the future of our communities.

That conversation is coming up next.

Data centers are the physical backbone of the digital world.

Every email sent, every video streamed, every online purchase and cloud based service depends on massive facilities that store, process and move information around the globe.

Demand for these facilities is growing rapidly, and the rise of artificial intelligence is accelerating that trend even further.

AI systems require enormous computing power, meaning the need for advanced data infrastructure is expanding at an unprecedented pace as demand for digital service continues to grow.

Technology companies are expanding their infrastructure, and increasingly, communities like ours here in Michiana are seeing new developments built and more proposed.

Supporters say data centers can bring major investment, strengthen infrastructure and position regions for long term economic growth.

But as proposals emerge, many residents are also asking questions about energy demand, water usage, land development and how these projects fit into the long term vision for their communities.

In this special one hour edition of Economic Outlook, we'll explore the data center conversation with multiple from multiple perspectives.

And joining me to have this discussion are Bill Schalliol, the director of economic development from the Department of Infrastructure Planning and Growth with Saint Joseph County Doctor Hong Zhuang, a professor of economics and the chair of decision sciences and Economics and director of the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at Indiana University, South Bend.

Emily Grubert, an associate professor of sustainable energy policy and the School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame, and Ben Inskeep, program directo at the Citizens Action Coalition.

Welcome, guys.

Thank you for joining us.

Appreciate you guys all being here with us today on this important topic, one that is really top of mind for a lot of folks.

And we're hoping that people get some great perspective from a lot of different views today.

So so just maybe to start, maybe a quick introduction, just so folks understand who all sitting with us and what your roles are.

Bill let me go your way.

Yeah.

So I'm Bill Schalliol.

I'm the St.

Joe County Economic development director, have held that position for almost 11 years now.

Involved in all of the projects, corner to corner of the county.

But specifically the Microsoft project, the AWS project, and, the GM, EV battery plant project.

Some.

Thank you.

Bill.

Hi.

I'm Hong and I'm, professor of economics from IU South Bend.

And I'm also the director of the Business and Economic Research at IU South Bend.

So my research focus on international economics, especially how investments, affects the local communities.

And, yeah, I've been with IU South Bend for almost 19 years.

Wonderful.

Appreciate you being here.

And a repeat guest.

Thank you for coming back at you too, Emily.

How about, just a quick perspective on what you do, I don't know.

Yeah, I'm Emily Grubert, and I'm an associate professor of sustainable energy policy, and I work mostly on energy systems, especially as we think about climate change.

Great appreciate that.

We'll look forward to the conversation.

Ben, an introduction of you and the Citizens Action Coalition.

Thank you.

I'm program director at Citizens Action Coalition.

Been there for four years.

We're a consumer and environmental advocacy organization that does all our work here in Indiana.

And we're taking a very, lead role in terms of responding to the data center onslaught that Hoosier communities are facing at the grassroots level in front of our regulatory commission.

And in front of our General Assembly.

Great.

Thank you, Ben.

Appreciate you all being here.

So Hong, let me come your way a little bit.

So just to talk economy a little bit and certainly at a high level, we're, we're seeing major investment in data centers around, across the US.

I think the data center industry has promised about $2 trillion of, of projects in the next several years.

Give us a high level of just kind of economy overview and kind of what's what's going on and that this may be helping drive this.

Sure.

So the we're saying that the investment into data center, I think this year will outpace the investment in office spaces.

This is like the first time, which means that, we will see less office buildings are built and more data centers, are under the construction.

And, according to the statistics, in 2025, at least 23 states are building the data centers.

And as of 2025, there's over 5000 data centers are built.

This is a trend because of the demand for AI, because of the demand for them, for for, artificial intelligence and in the cloud services.

Now the investment is a big part of the U.S GDP.

And if we see the investment going up, of course, the first part is that the production aggregate production would go up and production turns into income, and and income flows to the households that increase their income.

And when the income increases, that further support to household consumption.

And you can see that trickles down.

And there is a multiplier to effects that would help boost the US economic growth and Bill.

So you've been you've had a chance, as you mentioned, to be involved here locally, especially in the data center conversation.

You mentioned AWS and Microsoft talked to us a little bit at about those projects and your role with them.

Yeah.

So our role started from day one.

The first day they came into the community, we would walk them through the process, what it was going to take to build here, from permitting and zoning and all those kind of things.

As we've gone forward, especially with AWS, we've worked with them to, to craft local agreements on how they would pay for their utilities and how they would pay for other improvements that would need to be done.

About this point, we've done about $90 million in new infrastructure just on the AWS project, having a similar conversation with Microsoft on the other side of the county.

Much different scale project, but again, a lot of utility work that will go into that project.

So we're crafting those agreements and then again, working through from from start to finish.

So it it really is, especially the AWS project, the speed at which they have moved has really demanded a lot of work at the county and all of its partners to to get the project from one end to the other.

Great.

We're going to take a quick break here in the studio, run out to the field.

Jeff Jarnecke, the head of Visit South Bend Mishawaka is joining us.

Let me toss to the field Jeff.

So at least in this instance in the projects in New Carlisle with AWS and and we'll put the Synergy Cells project in as well since it's going on concurrently a bit specific to AWS when you have multiple thousands of construction workers out there each and every day, majority of which aren't local.

And so what we saw in Saint Joseph County in 2025 included more than 141,000 hotel room nights that were generated because of those projects.

And so those are people that are coming in, and we're able to see their patterns of what they're doing and where they're going and where they're coming from.

But they're coming in on Monday morning.

They're staying with us, through Thursday night at one of our hotels.

And then they're departing on Friday, and then they pick up and do it all over again on the next week.

And so those were room nights that didn't otherwise exist within Saint Joseph County, in the sense of that vertical in particular.

Those are room nights that we believe are going to exist for the next few years as construction continues out in New Carlisle.

And those are, opportunities to welcome people to our community that might not otherwise be here.

And so do they come back in the future with their families, do they come back and maybe reside here in the future, or are they at our grocery stores and our shops and at our malls and at our restaurants, in addition to being at the hotels?

And so the idea that we're able to welcome that number of people on an annual serve basis that are generating those sorts of room nights through our community because of economic development, is just tremendous and almost impossible for us to replace.

average daily rate that we had this past year was $136 per night.

Now, the University of Notre Dame will cause that number to go up.

When you talk about seven home football games and a concert, which are always going to be additive to, our economy and to our, portfolio within Saint Joseph County, but the idea that 141,000 at $136 a night adds up really quickly.

for us, it's not so much that we're looking at 25 as that high watermark, which it certainly is.

We want it to be our starting point as compared to our finish line, that we think that we can use that.

And knowing that, construction is going to continue for the next several years, within New Carlisle and we take that energy, that we take that success, and then we take that momentum and take then, frankly, the proceeds that come from that and invest those dollars wisely, such that when the construction projects are complete and they're fully operational, that we're able to continue to build upon that infrastructure and continue to build upon that hospitality offering within our county.

So we don't just look back at 2025 fondly and remember what happened, but actually use that and turn that into something really meaningful and powerful.

For Saint Joseph County.

I think we are entering a new phase economically within Saint Joseph County.

And the reason behind that is, as we look at what happened around the rest of the state in terms of occupancy, that's why our success was so noteworthy.

The rest of the state actually decreased about 1% in terms of occupancy year over year from 24 into 25, whereas we grew by 14%.

And so that's undeniable in terms of the economic activity that's taking place, not just within, our attractions, our destinations, but largely buoyed and, seen as a catalyst because of the construction projects that are taking place in New Carlisle what our businesses are doing, whether it's a restaurateur that perhaps purchased a food truck, then anecdotally, we hear stories of more than 200 pizzas being sold a day out there to the some 4000 construction workers that are on site even if 50% needed lunch, then there is a new opportunity of 2200 mouths to feed that weren't there last year.

You know, they weren't there in 24.

And so those opportunities are so prevalent and so much so we're able to track them through our, technology, where they're coming from, what they're doing, and then where they're going afterwards.

And so they show up on Monday morning, they're on the job site for about 8.1 8.5 hours.

Many of the top referral, sites are then to a hotel within South Bend.

And so then when they're at that hotel, then we also see that they're going to restaurants, they're going to other amenities, and then they do it all over again on Tuesday and then on Wednesday and Thursday, and then they depart on Friday and then just pick up and do it all over again the next week.

Jeff thank you.

Appreciate that perspective.

A lot of different perspectives get you on data center.

Just another one Ben, let me come your way.

You mentioned in your intro that you've had a chance to be involved in not only data center projects here, but kind of around the state.

Talk to us a little bit about, what you're seeing in the data center space.

Yeah, that's right.

We're seeing a lot of data center proposals across the state.

We're currently tracking more than 50, AI data center proposals in Indiana.

Not all of them are going to be built, but certainly some of them have already started construction, such as the project in New Carlisle.

But many communities are also pushing back.

We've seen at least 14 communities successfully push back on a data center proposal and stop it from moving forward.

And at the same time, we're also seeing a lot of proposals, you know, reconsider their concessions to the community, you know, beef up the amount of money they're providing, through local property taxes, make additional, contributions to nonprofit organizations, respond to community concerns about water usage.

So we're also seeing that this active community pushback is leading developers to have to address some of these, impacts that their, facilities and developments are causing.

Thanks, Ben.

Bill I want to come your way, And then you, Emily.

Bill talk just for a second about as we mentioned, with Hong, like, like, data centers are proposing like $2 trillion worth of projects across the, across the country.

Indiana has, has been mentioned, has become a popular spot with.

Why?

Why Indiana?

Why is it they're looking at our state for some of this kind of development?

So obviously a number of reasons, you know, whether it's big land, big power, big, you know, big water, that we have a lot of those things.

The state, though, years ago, put in a very favorable tax policy for incentives for both, power usage as well as for some of the employment things related to the the data centers themselves.

So from a tax policy, very favorable conditions.

So, and I think for years the state of Indiana had a very favorable stance towards economic development.

We certainly still do, but really was looking at those kind of projects.

And I think that's that's part of the reason why we, we got ourselves on the radar and again, we are the crossroads of America.

All the, all the fiber runs, you know, just south of the lake comes right through this area, comes through the middle of the state.

So there's just a lot of reasons why we really hit the mark.

Yeah.

And obviously they are being proposed in quite a few states, as I mentioned, but but certainly Indiana, it feels like it's in the center of a lot of those proposals.

Emily, let me come away a little bit, because your expertise on the energy side of things, and certainly energy is a big piece of the discussion here.

They they need power.

They need water to give us some energy, insight or perspective.

Yeah.

This has been a huge topic in the energy community and especially the electricity modeling and assessment community for a while, because this is really the first major, major growth that we've seen in electricity demand in quite a while, a couple of decades that the US has really seen basically flat electricity demand.

We expect that as the system changes, we're probably going to use electricity for more things like cars and heating and things like this.

But right now, the data centers are really the big story.

The thing that I think makes people particularly interested in this is that we're seeing really pretty significant costs associated with it, because there's so much speed with the implementation that equipment's getting more expensive.

It's hard to find things quickly.

So we are seeing some cost impacts and also some environmental impacts that are actually fairly new versus what we've seen over the last couple of decades.

Yeah.

And Bill, sorry to come back to you a bit since you've been involved in this.

So talk about this energy piece a little bit or maybe Bill build upon this because you mentioned so, I always think like Michigan's a peninsula.

So the power has to, you know, kind of dip down through here, but, but as, as you've been in these meetings and talking with folks about, you know, kind of the energy demand and such give, give us some perspective from, from the companies as they're looking at this area.

Yeah, certainly.

And so the, the both Microsoft both and Amazon came to us through the power company.

So that was where the lead came.

And and they brought them to the market and really kind of worked through the whole process.

From a power side though, we're we're positioned we're right at the far west edge in the PJM power grid.

The Miso power grid just is on the other side of the county line.

We've got a lot of power coming out of Michigan.

So the soon to be two new nuclear power plants there, a lot of the power comes to the Dumont substation down south of Potato Creek.

So just where we are, we have a lot of power that comes through the grid.

And so that's part of the part of the cell, so to speak, for Saint Joe County is because of the amount of power that moves through the area.

Now, again, a lot of that power created up in Michigan goes other places, but it's got to come through us first before it goes to those other places.

So we we do have a lot of power on the grid.

We have a, the Saint Joe Energy Center is making power right now, currently putting that power into the PJM grid.

It will soon go into the Miso power grid based on a recent sale, but again, opportunities for upgrades of the power and upgrades to those kind of things as part of these kind of projects.

Right, Ben, can I come your way and let's let's talk from an energy perspective, because I think as, as data centers have advanced forward and the public is providing input, that the energy use is something I think that that that has folks, you know, concerned.

Can you share a little bit of perspective or what you're hearing on the energy side?

Yeah, the energy demands of these facilities is truly mind boggling.

Just one AI data center can use the equivalent amount of electricity as 730,000 Hoosier households.

To put that in context.

So we're talking about, you know, enormous infrastructure, enormous new power plants that are going to need to be built.

And then, layering that on top of our current utility regulatory framework, which does not provide a lot of protections for residential customers.

And that's part of the reason why we've been seeing major bill increases across time, is because our residential customers often are footing the bill for industrial customer, expenses, for the grid updates.

And so that's one of the big concerns I think a lot of Hoosiers have is how our data centers can I impact my utility bill.

And right now we have a lot of concerns on that front.

Who's going to be picking up the tab for the enormous amounts of infrastructure spend?

So, for example, we're seeing Indiana, Michigan power is not currently charging some of their data center customers, to connect to the grid.

And instead, those hundreds of millions of dollars in upgrades are being spread out across other ratepayers.

I'm so right now, we have a lot of concerns that we need to make sure, these data center customers are paying their fair share of costs and aren't burdening Hoosiers with higher bills.

Bill, can I come back your way a little bit?

Because.

Because certainly.

What what Ben raised about some of these concerns.

But but recently I&M made some announcements about, their investment share a little bit about that.

Yeah.

So I mean I&M is going to go to the IURC to ask for a rate reduction.

Again, because of, of value coming into their, their company, they're going to have the ability to do some discounts and things like that.

I mean, maybe to Ben's point to, to a degree, the governmental process is flawed.

It's, they're going to file with the IURC this year, but those rates won't go into effect until 2027.

So, you know, it takes a while to get through the process a little bit.

So, but so, so part of the you mentioned early the, the infrastructure upgrades that are happening in New Carlisle include, upgrading not only road but water electric as well.

So so there's a it feels like there's a little give and take like sort of making upgrades to the system that the system needs and then the, the proposal to reduce some rate.

Yeah.

So I think a system like AEP has has elements of its network that are 50, 60, 70 years old.

And so these data center projects are paying for some of those upgrades, upgrading from, you know, kind of a small network to that, that next level network that we're going to need when we start having electric cars on more of a regular basis, when we're going to have more of these projects.

So these projects are driving infrastructure upgrades that are important.

We've seen that just in water alone in the New Carlisle area, the amount of investment we put into upgrading the water network, very important for for not only these projects, but also for the community as a whole.

Emily can come back to you real quick just on the energy side, because obviously data centers have accelerated the discussion on energy.

But for a long time, I think the US has been trying to figure out energy and alternative energies and some of this.

So, so, so maybe give a bigger, maybe even outside data centers, like with some challenges, maybe even before data centers came on the on the stream, but so can we, provide the power needed for US industry to expand and data centers as well?

Possibly.

It's going to take a lot of work.

So I think one of the things in my work when I look at what kinds of things we need coming out of the energy system, we would expect potentially in the next three decades, that we need the system to become somewhere between 2 and 6 times the size that it is now.

So the data center piece of this driving, you know, kind of hundreds of gigawatts of load is a big deal.

We're potentially talking about thousands of gigawatts over the next several decades.

So there need to be a lot of upgrades.

I think one of the things that I look at in this regard is if we can't handle the data center load, we're going to have some real trouble handling all these other loads.

On the other hand, the data centers are putting so much pressure on equipment, just the pace at which we're doing this that we are a little bit outside of our regulatory areas at this point.

Yeah.

Hong I’m going to come your way just real quick and then we'll go back to the field.

A lot of talk about on shoring, bringing manufacturing back a little bit is is there other activity sort of happening in the US in addition to the data center piece that that sort of contributes to this conversation about the need for more energy?

As far as I know, that sort of my knowledge knows this that AI and data center, of course, is driving the future investment.

And, that's probably the major one.

Yeah.

No, I think that's good because I think that obviously, as we look at the industry and such, that there's been a lot of talk about entering so other industries, but obviously the data center data center now is definitely driving the investment.

And I have a quick data that.

So if we take a look at the US, 2024, the fourth quarter GDP data, the U.S is sitting around $31.5 trillion.

And then based on the announcement, you have a numbers eight, $1 trillion.

And then what I read was that, Amazon, Google, meta and Microsoft all together have announced a close to $700 billion of capital expenditure this year.

So that is around 12.7% of gross domestic private investment for the US, and that accounts for 2.7% of the U.S GDP.

So you think about this magnitude.

It's huge.

It's huge.

Nothing else so far as comparing to it.

Great.

We're going to leave the studio here.

Ben mentioned that, communities are approaching this in different ways.

We're going to go out to Mark Allen.

Mark is in Starke County and is going to talk a little bit about Starke County I'm on the planning commission.

So the planning commission, I'm the vice president.

My name is Mark Allen.

we were looking at doing something because we were running into, companies that were talking about possibly putting a data center in Starke County.

the moratorium is 12 months.

What we're doing is we're doing more research.

I do know that myself and a couple of other board members who I've actually been involved with, some of the locations up here in South Bend.

I'm a electrician at Memorial, so I interact with some of the contractors and around at the data center.

So I think more than anything, we're going to get our research in.

I do know that there are tons of environmental issues that's been discussed and power capacity issues.

The data centers use a ton of power.

I do know that, I met with, the generator company that actually is providing generators to the Amazon facility and how many, how many generators they have and how much power is needed to run those data centers.

So I think that that's a factor into this designing for the county.

People don't want to see their utility rates go up.

Very minimal amount of jobs.

I don't I just don't think that that the county, our group is really behind it.

And I think the county as a whole wasn't behind it.

So.

I kind of think it's going to be extended the moratorium or or no data centers at all, because there's a lot of opposition to the data centers.

And Starke County.

we're not prepared for anything of that extreme.

So it doesn't make sense for Starke County.

If you're going to do some in Starke County, it's going to be something positive.

And this doesn't seem very positive for the community.

I mean, our job as board members is to try to improve.

So I just don't see that as an improvement I think the water usage is a big thing.

They're scared.

I mean, they're scared of the water usage.

They're scared of the electrical utilities going up.

I mean, environmentally, I think there I think Starke County's always been know as a rural community, and I think we want to keep it like that.

If you look at the numbers, there's not a lot of job creation for something that's a small scale data center.

I don't see that being a big plus in the community.

And then the other question becomes, how many people would qualify for those jobs, those jobs are tech jobs.

Starke County is so like I said, rural community.

Not a lot of, I'd say doctors, you know, I mean, you're talking to a different level of education requirement to work at some of these data centers.

So you have to have a lot of maybe, electrical engineer or something like that.

And, you know, there are some in the community, but I just think it would be harder to find people.

And so, you know, you gain a couple production jobs.

You'd probably get, tax benefit, very minimal.

So the bottom line is how many jobs are available in the position.

I don't know how many jobs were created about the Amazon.

I can't tell you that, but I just know from what I read, there's not a lot of when everything's when the dust all settles and everything done, there's not a lot of jobs.

It's mostly self-sufficient.

I think for a while there, I think that the state was letting, solar and data, centers and all this other stuff just come in and not have any regulations.

And I think now we're seeing more of that tightened down.

I don't know how tight they're making it, but I do know for a fact that it's been like there's been a push down at the state House to to look at that was one of the discussion of having their own power source for data centers because of the demand for power.

I don't know about the water source yet, but I do know that a lot of the data centers are getting more efficient.

So they're using less water.

So I expect the push will be to try to get them to where they don't use a lot of water, and if they provide their own electric, then it may be something to consider.

But at this point it's not going anywhere.

And Starke County that I see so, Mark thank you.

Appreciate you sharing that perspective.

Then let me come your way because we talked earlier about just this is not for every communities is not for every, you know, property out there.

Mark brought up some good points that talk a little bit about just maybe the trend in some communities, maybe some of the more rural ones, on moratoriums and other, things related to data centers.

Yeah, that's right.

A lot of local communities are now kind of grappling with data center proposals or discussions of them.

And so I would say that, it makes a lot of sense for communities to consider a moratorium on data centers, so they can make sure they have the right regulations in place, make sure they're considering this type of development and the impacts it could have on the community in deciding whether or not it's the right fit for, you know, the various parts of their community.

As we've heard, you know, there's tremendous impacts at the local level, things like lots of diesel generators that can be providing backup power, but creating lots of local air pollution impacts.

We're hearing lots of noise from data centers.

If they're sited near residential communities, it can be, you know, extremely, burdensome to the those folks to hear that kind of noise on an ongoing basis.

We're looking at, potentially some significant water withdrawals, water impacts, not just in the amount of water they're using directly on site, but also the water, the power plants that they're going to need in order to operate are using, potentially in other communities.

And then there's all sorts of pollution impacts, from the power plants to the, potential stuff that's in the water that the data centers are putting in to prevent, things like corrosion in their pipes.

So there's a whole host of issues that local communities are learning about.

And, the more they learn, I think the less they like about these data centers, especially when you see that they're going to provide very few jobs to local residents.

You know, other than short term construction jobs, you know, once they're fully operational, they're providing very few jobs, particularly relative to the amount of power they're consuming.

And then when you add on top of that the enormous subsidies they're getting, we're talking on the order of billions of dollars for each data center, both in terms of the state property, excuse me, the state sales tax exemption and local property tax abatements that can be layered on top of that.

These things aren't providing a lot of resources for many communities to.

So I think when they're looking at the trade offs, as more and more communities are asking, why should we move forward with these, I think they're deciding that a moratorium is the right first step.

Then let me push back for a second, because you suggest that these companies plan to pollute the air.

Isn't this a heavy, regulated industry?

Don't they have to sort of, meet pretty strict guidelines?

Like I just I'm confused that that knowingly they come in and, and plan to pollute the environment.

No, the environment is not regulated very heavily in Indiana.

We are a state that has very lax regulations, and we have very few enforcement.

When companies break the law and are not complying with environmental regulations, I think the bigger the biggest issue with the pollution impacts would be from the power plants, that are going to be serving these data centers.

And so while that they do have regulation, they are still allowed to emit a lot of pollution that can negatively impact communities.

And we're talking about a severe, public health and environmental impacts from the pollution from the coal plants that are continuing to operate as a result of data centers, the new gas plants that Indiana, Michigan power wants to build and buy in order to serve the data centers, the onsite diesel that's, you know, up to a million gallons being stored at these facilities and then used in the backup scenario.

So I would say, Hoosiers are definitely right to be concerned about the environmental impacts.

And the Senate’s, roll back 277 that was just passed this past, legislative session.

Does a number on completely gutting the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, so further eroding our already weak environmental regulations.

So there's a lot of concern here.

Thanks Ben.

Bill let me come your way.

So both Mark mentioned in his remarks, Ben mentioned this job piece.

Give us some job perspective.

So earlier this week we got numbers from Amazon.

And maybe like let me take a sidestep.

So from a construction standpoint we've seen kind of at the high water mark of the the construction about 5000 construction workers on site, a fair amount of those local tradespeople, you know, from all ages, all sectors, all things like that.

A lot of people have been brought into the market, so say 5000 construction workers.

Again, those are temporary jobs as our as construction jobs are supposed to be.

You start a project end of project.

But from a permanent job perspective.

Earlier this week we got numbers from Amazon that of the seven data shells that they have that are active presently, they've hired over 900 employees.

And those are permanent jobs that people that work for Amazon.

So those are if you split those people up over four shifts, you know, they estimated it takes anywhere between 15 to 25 people to run a building per shift.

So those are, you know, those are anywhere from data splicers and fiber splicers to engineers to electricians to all sorts of different technical abilities.

So it isn't that it's just electrical engineers and computer scientists that are running these buildings.

It really is a variety of trades and skill sets that that have to run these buildings.

And again, each building takes a certain number of people to run.

So it's a little misnomer to that.

It's just Jim and Tim that run a data center campus and 2 or 3 guys, and that everything's done remotely in another company or country.

A lot of that work does have to happen on site based on these the way these hyperscale projects work.

So maybe just if I can follow up just a little perspective on this job piece.

So, so 900, seems like a lot, but put it in perspective of sort of largest employers in the area and then talk for a second just about wages associated with the jobs.

Yeah.

So, so from a, from a wage perspective to take and with the AWS Amazon Web Service project was set up is to be eligible for the for the enterprise technology exemption, the jobs had to meet 125% to the average wage of Saint Joe County.

Right now, the average wage in 2026 puts that job at $36 an hour.

So, you know, just even a starting pay, the average wage has to be at a minimum of 36 A and then yet benefits and other factors into that.

And again, it's an average wage and their wages that make more wages that we make the less.

But that's a starting point again, 125% above our existing average county wage, that number to keep that incentive.

So for the next 35 years, for Amazon to keep the enterprise technology exemption, credit, they've got to meet that wage.

That wage hopefully will go up every year.

So that number at 36 today, maybe 38, maybe 42 in a couple of years.

So, you know, we think from a, from a job pay standpoint that that's, you know, that's something that's going to help the whole county and it's going to move that number up, over the next several years.

And the 900.

Oh, and the 900.

So originally when Amazon came to our market to commit for jobs, it committed to a thousand employees, 600 that we're going to be kind of satellite workers or, or, contract workers, 400.

That would be actual Amazon workers, these 900 plus jobs on campus right now are the Amazon jobs.

So already with seven building versus 16, they've well exceeded their job goal requirements.

And we anticipate when we get the numbers on the the the contractor jobs, that number is going to be that much higher hung on to come to you and then back to the field.

So build on the job piece of this because because I think, you know, sort of as an overarching goal, how do we grow wages which help families, which help neighborhoods.

And all this give give us some job perspective.

Sure.

Just I have the data from 2025.

So based on the first eight months average data.

So for South Bend Mishawaka MSA, the average hourly earnings for those private jobs is around $31.6.

That's the average.

So if $36 well above the meet the average earnings.

And then for Elkhart County that's similar is $31.77.

And then in 2025, the average total non-farm employment per month in South Bend and Mishawaka, MSA is 142,000.

So if adding 1000 jobs permanently so, that's close to point 7% of the job increase, I would say that's very significant.

Not to mention that if the, the additional jobs, of course, like we talked earlier, that really income flows to the households and households and more households get employed, more income is generated.

So their demand for housing, food, education and there's a lot of supporting service.

So now there will be multiplier effect that will help support and increase the aggregate output and aggregate income in South Bend, area.

That's great.

Thank you guys.

Want to take a quick break again here.

We're going to go back to the field George Lepeniotis.

my co-host is back and he is over at Ivy tech talking a little bit more about kind of the jobs and training to sort of help prepare people for jobs and data center industry.

George, let me toss it to you.

Thanks, Jeff.

And it's nice to be back on the show doing what we love to do.

I'm here downtown, South Bend on the campus of Ivy Tech Community College, and I'm joined today by Amber Ruszkowski.

Amber, thanks for being with us.

Amber I'm going to butcher the title, but I believe you are vice chancellor and I'm looking at my notes.

I'm cheating already.

But, for Ivy, plus careerlink and community partnerships.

All right, it's a mouthful, because before we went on air, I asked you what your day to day was like, and you said it's never the same thing twice.

Tell me a little bit about your role here at Ivy Tech Community College.

Yeah.

Thank you so much.

Well, appreciate you being here today.

So, Ivy plus career link is you can kind of think about it as your traditional career services for our college students, but it really is delivering an awesome customer service experience for also our employer community as well.

So you can kind of think of our operations in three buckets, if you will.

So we have everything related to apprenticeships.

So that's our building trades union.

And then our incumbent workers upskilling.

We do that and then we have employer consulting services where, we have staff who will go out into the field and meet with our employer partners to really understand their current talent needs and what that needs to look like from an upskilling perspective.

And then we have our traditional career services, pieces that you would find in any college or university.

So things like polishing up a student resume, getting them prepared for interviewing those different types of pieces.

So really, you are the link between a college student and a potential employer.

Absolutely.

That's great.

And really, the key that we're talking about today is data centers.

They are controversial.

I will say, but really at the heart of it, they are just another business looking to take advantage of what we as a community have to offer.

And one of those pillars, I think, is our workforce, right.

So really, the people that we have that are willing young folks that are willing to get into careers and the institutions like Ivy tech, that are willing to help them get the skills.

Talk a little bit about what that process would look like for a young person looking to build a career and potentially get into working in a data center.

Yeah.

Well, I think that looks a couple of different ways.

So we're really focusing on starting to build that pipeline for data center careers all the way in the K-12 space.

So we're reaching down and we're partnering with our high school, community, partners and some of the districts to start getting in front of students and talking about what data center careers look like.

What types of jobs are available, what does that look like?

What does a day to day look like?

What type of skills do you need?

So we're kind of having those conversations with our youth and then we're hopefully doing and building some dual credit programing where students can actually get into some of those foundational data center technician or mechanical type courses and start to get that experience and exposure, get some certifications under their belt.

Go apply it.

You know, a data center, AWS or, you know, a Google or a Microsoft and, you know, get into their career pathway, but then also have upskilling opportunities as well as an incumbent worker.

So it sounds like you really have a lot of thought that's gone into this.

What exactly is Ivy tech and specifically your program doing to jumpstart that talent pipeline or that that preparedness of our local workforce for these jobs?

Yeah, sure.

Absolutely.

So we've we've done a couple of different workshops, some shorter term training and some shorter term pieces that really help lay the foundation to get the pipeline going.

So back last year, as AWS is really accelerating their construction out at the New Carlisle site, we were doing a couple of workshops, I2PA, which is their, pre apprenticeship workshop.

We did two of those cohorts together.

And then we also did an I2PW, which is for the educators to actually help, you know, get students to understand what data center work is like.

And so that's kind of helping bring the educators along in the community so that they can, explain what data center jobs actually look like for students.

Well, and maybe for our viewers, what do data center jobs look like?

I've been curious about that for a while.

I've heard both different sides that sometimes are technical or sometimes a real entry level.

What do those jobs look like and how are these students getting training?

Yeah.

So I think there's a range that you can consider.

So there are very entry level, positions.

Technician related.

In the 22 to $28 per hour range.

There are mid range roles, and then there are the higher end roles that you would get anywhere between 80,000 and $100,000 per year.

So there's really quite a wide range of opportunity whenever it comes to data center employment.

And what I'm finding is that at AWS, they have really flexible work arrangements and really flexible operations.

So you could maybe be, you know, an evening shifter or a daytime shifter, you know, so there's a lot of flexibility.

There's a lot of benefits that also come with the positions as well.

That's great.

Yeah.

That's great.

And finally, when you think about the programing we talk about fiber slicing.

You know that was something you said a little earlier in some of these they sound technical.

I mean, are these kids really getting that type of hands on experience in their training?

Absolutely.

So here at Ivy tech, all of our training programs are very technical.

They're very hands on, and they're real world application.

So yes, we we've done fiber optic splicing workshops in the past.

I think we've done two of those.

Previously we're going to be doing some more, we we just received some funding.

But we're also working with AWS and their contractors as well to identify some of those training and upskilling opportunities.

You know, at the trade level.

So we're looking at doing some different, training related to low, medium voltage, wire termination, cable pulling.

You know, conduit bending, more of those kind of technical pieces that the students are going to be doing hands on.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And quickly, as we wrap up here, we think about the partnerships you've already built.

You've already built a partnership with AWS, and they have begun to support, your programing.

And you look to future partnerships.

Ivy tech really is poised.

If someone wanted to learn more about that career path, where would they go?

So the the best place is our website.

We have a ton of information.

Our South Bend campus website.

We have, very clear information about the two, the two programs that we've developed for data centers.

So our first program is data center technician.

And then the second program is data center engineering operations.

And it very clearly lays out the pathway how students can get started in that.

Really excited.

We actually have, a Saturday cohort that we're working to begin March 21st.

For the DCO programing.

And Amazon is currently upskilling about 15 of their employees in that program.

That's awesome.

Well, Amber, thank you for being with us.

Thank you for the brief overview of how, you know, Ivy tech is responding to the need and the new interest here in Indiana and across the region.

Thank you.

Jeff, back to you, where I'm sure you've talking a lot more about data centers and the challenges that they face, but more importantly, the resources that our region provides that makes Indiana and this area a prime spot for these developments.

George, thank you.

Good to see you again.

Appreciate that.

Emily.

Let me let me come your way just because I want to make sure we cover a lot of topics before our time gets away from us.

Let's talk water for a second, because some of your, skills and expertise is in the water space.

There's a lot of water questions about these.

I obviously I think technology is evolving.

And in terms, give us some water perspective.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think one of the things that comes up a lot to people are like, why are these using water?

It's a bunch of computers, what's going on?

And generally it's a cooling need.

So there's a lot of heat being pushed off by these servers, and they need to do something to make sure that they don't overheat.

So that's a lot of what the water is being used for.

I think one of the concerns is that that water becomes a really constant need.

You can't really turn it off because then you risk this overheating.

It's also not something you can really supply via rainfall, and particularly for the clusters that are being built out here, they're in a pretty sensitive ecological areas, sort of around the Kankakee Marsh and in our very neat Continental Divide region.

So the water resources in that region are pretty sensitive, as well as being pretty important for a lot of the farmers in the area.

And they'll kind of come your way because you've been both with the company and with the town, even as you've been talking about water on on these projects.

Give us the kind of the local perspective again.

Yeah, certainly.

So one of the things we did early on when we when we started this project is really did a lot of assessments on the aquifer.

Who's using the water, how much water is coming out.

So the farmers, the industrial industrial users, what could potential projects, require from water use and things like that.

So we spent a lot of time doing that.

So we sit on an aquifer that the estimation is that it generates about 48 million gallons of water a day.

And what we did early on is set a limit of 24 million gallons a day that we would take or that we could take up to out of the water treatment plants that we have.

We have two water treatment plants that that draw out of the the Kankakee aquifer, in the New Carlisle area.

Both are managed by the town, New Carlisle.

You know, at a current system rate, we're probably using about 4 million gallons.

Now, obviously, when GM comes online, more of Amazon come online.

Those numbers will increase.

But we've set a cap and said beyond the all users, for all users out of the water treatment plants.

Now obviously you start pulling out the farmers and some of those others that that number shifts a little bit, but some of that seasonal, you know, the farmers aren't using irrigation pivots in the middle of winter.

And so there's, there's kind of a give and take with some of that.

The other thing too, though, is when we look at water, as Emily mentioned, you know, you're obviously heating, you know, the buildings heat up, you gotta cool them.

So the evaporative cooling systems that they use really are only used at the heaviest amount, you know, maybe six, seven, eight days a year.

So when we talk about our water system, we built, we joke.

It's kind of like the, the mall parking lot.

You build a mall parking lot for Black Friday and kind of the heaviest days of the year, our water system is built for that.

The average daily use of this water is, is pretty low, in comparison.

And then, you know, we talk about technology.

If you jump to the other side of the county, the Microsoft project is really only going to use water to the buildings for fire protection and then sinks and toilets, all the water and the cooling systems.

And that will be brought in, put into the system, pulled out of the system and then treated elsewhere.

So water usage again, as these buildings become more efficient, the water usage becomes much more efficient with it.

And my guess, yeah, technology is probably evolving really fast.

Then I want to come your way.

We've got to, we're going to go to the audience real quick, but I'll give you 30s, if you don't mind, Ben, just to to add some perspective on the water side before we move on to some audience questions.

Yeah, I'd emphasize two points.

You know, one is the lack of transparency we're getting.

A lot of the data centers aren't telling us how much water they're going to use.

So that's a big problem.

The second point is just to go back to the power plants, the power plants that these data centers need to operate use an enormous amount of water.

For example, the 20 600 megawatt gas plant that Nipsco is building for Amazon could use more than 20 million gallons per day.

So very big impact not just on site, but also off site.

Awesome.

Thank you Ben.

Appreciate it.

We're going to go so recently a meeting about data centers up in Harris Township.

We had a chance to grab a couple from the audience and have them ask questions that we're going to talk about here.

Let's go to our first question.

My question for the panel would be, is that obviously, the process for data centers to be determined in a certain area, is very flawed.

And I would just ask, why does seemingly one department, the Economic Development Department, have so much power and say on where these projects go, leaving very little voice to the community who has to live by these data centers?

How can we involve the community more for these higher up decisions and involve the people that this will actually affect Maybe I'll come your way.

Well, as the economic development department, let me answer that question.

So our planning staff spends years building comprehensive plans, establishes areas where projects should go, you know, sets terms and conditions through zoning and things like that.

So the data center projects happen in areas that are already kind of pre-selected for zoning and, you know, have conditions that are favorable to that weather, utilities or land conditions, other things like that.

We don't make that decision.

The county council ultimately, in Saint Joe County, is the legislative body that makes the decision whether, piece of property is zoned to rezone.

And so there are a lot of steps, a lot of public steps along the way that, determine where these projects go.

Right.

Appreciate that.

All right.

Second audience question.

What other benefits are these companies going to bring to this area?

Because, you know, again, we touched on employment.

Not a lot of permanent jobs are going to be created.

And if they're going to be donated to local schools.

That's fantastic.

I want to know how much money though.

I want to know exactly what other things that are going to bring the benefits, because, man, they're asking us to really take a risk by putting these kinds of things in our neighborhoods and everywhere else.

The people that have those next to their houses keep them, and that is what concerns me.

Is there going to be, you know, essentially forcing us on this because we had no say in whether that land was being zoned for industrial use.

People who lived here had absolutely no say.

And so now we're in scramble mode trying to figure out what's going on.

And so my question is, would be, you know, what other benefits are going to be coming?

Because, you know, if you're building this in our community, we expect a little bit more for the cost that's going to be passed on to us.

Bill, not to put you on the hot seat, but yeah, so so the way these projects work.

So there's there's not only the tax benefits that come from these projects.

Obviously they're large investment.

So there's, you know, an equated large amount of taxes that they pay, community benefit programs that are set up.

So our new Carlisle different deal with Amazon is completely different than the Microsoft deal.

Microsoft has come into the market and said they're not going to ask for any tax incentives and so on.

On top of not having any tax incentives, they're paying for utilities.

So in the, in, Mishawaka case or in, the Mishawaka East case for Microsoft, I mean, we're looking at probably $70 million worth of utility infrastructure that doesn't exist today that will be built, that can be extended into the Granger area, into other areas.

So that's a benefit.

Again, money to schools, partnerships, partnerships with the park systems.

Again, other money that government does not have today that can be used to benefit these areas.

Right.

And I didn't want to cut anybody else off.

If you had things to offer to that Ben or Hong or Emily anything.

Yeah.

I think the one thing that I would kind of highlight is that a lot of the investment that's happening on the energy side is stuff that the data centers are using, and so they're putting a huge amount of pressure on the energy systems and on a lot of our regulatory capacity in ways that aren't necessarily covering everything that they need.

So I think that there are some real questions about that as well as just, you know, what's the societal benefit of devoting this much resource to this particular use as opposed to something else?

I think from the economic perspective, is that or or from the higher education perspective that I love to see more talents or more high skille talents are attracted to Indiana.

Indiana is known for its really good higher education system.

But, as as a professor in a higher education, we hate to see that actually, when people receive either bachelor's degree, it especially in engineering down, they moved out of the South Bend areas because we don't have we don't have jobs for them.

They moved it down to other parts, stayed in the Indianapolis or move out of the state in order to find the opportunities.

So what the data center build.

It's great to have those engineering jobs, to have those like technical and job technician jobs built.

So we really hope that would bring the revive some of the manufacturing sector in South Bend.

Ben ,I want to make sure I give a chance, too, to weigh in.

Anything to add on that discussion?

Yeah, I would add that the risk and uncertainty of the data centers and just AI in general, I think is, one of the reasons, folks are feeling this anxiety about these developments.

A lot of economic experts are now thinking that we're in an AI bubble.

A lot of these big tech companies are making really unsustainable investments that eventually are going to run out, you know, even even Trillionaires can run out of money when you're spending hundreds of billions of dollars every year.

So I think, you know, folks are very, very wise to be thinking not just about the next year, but about the next 20 or 30 years to make sure.

Are we actually fully protected from the risks?

Have we actually examined all the impacts?

And are the companies being transparent, and are they being good partners in other communities?

And if not, maybe they're not the right fit for our community.

Great.

Thank you.

Thanks, Ben.

So just a couple minutes left.

And so I'm going to just maybe leave it open for a second and offer maybe a couple last thoughts, from each of you, Emily, just as we as this discussion continues, as communities are wrestling with this, as we're trying to, you know, figure this out, any last minute advice to, communities as they're thinking through some of this?

Yeah, I think from an energy perspective and just from a resources perspective in general, there's a lot of stuff that we need resources for.

We need a lot of energy for a lot of things that provide a huge amount of societal benefit.

This is a situation where we're devoting a lot of resources for not super clear benefits, I think, and just the scale of the kinds of investments we're putting into this, rather than something else, I think is worth really investigating.

Hong.

30 sesconds.

Yeah.

So, the thank you final thoughts?

Yeah, I would definitely know the I noticed a future trend and I understand that our county would like to get on the train too.

And I also think having one data center is great, yet with more data center.

And in economics we actually emphasize on the sustainable growth.

So we really need to have a comprehensive review of the local resources that how many data centers can we support?

I know that we already have two.

And can we support more.

And then with the one that currently have and, what are the mitigation strategies that were made, the resources, use more efficient and benefit and address the environmental issues that local residents raised?

Great.

Ben, I got about 30s.

One final thought for me is just, you know, this technology and artificial intelligence, you know, the folks that are building these models and owning them are telling us that that's going to be used to actually end jobs, to reduce jobs, kill jobs.

So I want to folks to think about, even if these AI data centers are going to create a couple hundred jobs in my community, is it going to be taking away thousands of jobs from communities across the United States?

Great.

Thanks, Ben and Bill.

Final 30s.

Yeah, I, I think this is a great discussion.

I think these kind of discussions need to continue to happen.

I mean, I think there's great opportunities with the amount of investment, to to look at power and energy and how we deal with that.

I would also say, though, that along the way we haven't just stumbled into this.

We haven't done this by accident.

We, you know, we've we've been very intentional, whether it's studying water, studying utility systems, studying things like that.

So we're we're trying to put these in the right place in the right areas and trying to make the right decisions for the long term and, and short term growth of the communities.

Thank you really to all for you.

We had hoped to bring some different perspective and give our audience something to think about, and we appreciate you all offering your perspectives today.

that wraps up this special edition of Economic Outlook.

Data centers represent one of the most significant and complex economic development conversations happening in our region today.

We want to thank all of our guests for sharing their insights and perspectives and helping explore the opportunities, concerns, and questions surrounding this rapidly growing industry.

Thanks for watching on PBS Michiana.

WNIT you can find all of our past episodes at WNIT.org, on YouTube and most major podcast platforms like us on Facebook.

Follow us on Twitter.

I'm Jeff Rea.

I'll see you next time.

This WNIT, local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.