Indiana is a data-center hub — here’s the money, megawatts, and map

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NORTHWEST INDIANA — If you still picture cloud computing as a coast thing, the map has moved. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Meta have staked multi-billion-dollar campuses across Indiana, with Northwest Indiana sitting on some of the heaviest power and hiring pegs in the state.

This is a numbers brief for readers who drive past substations, construction gates, and utility hearings — dollars, megawatts, jobs, counties — with named public sources.

Region N3 original chart. Indiana figures only — stamped. Photo credit: Region N3 Tech Desk / Nathan P.

A look inside the numbers

The Northwest Indiana Forum said June 17 that Amazon committed about $26 billion to Indiana data-center infrastructure across 2024–2025, tied to roughly 2,100 new jobs on top of more than 40,000 Amazon-supported jobs already in the state. That Forum package also framed Jasper County’s Project Rise as a $7 billion campus creating about 250 permanent roles — part of the $26 billion commitment, not a stack on top of it.

Amazon’s own releases break the spine into pieces readers already hear in local news: an $11 billion AWS campus at New Carlisle in St. Joseph County, then an additional $15 billion for new Northern Indiana campuses expected to create 1,100 high-skilled jobs and add 2.4 gigawatts of data-center capacity, with Hobart as the first named Lake County site.

Power is the other half of the sticker. The Times of Northwest Indiana reported in May that NIPSCO’s GenCo unit added 400 megawatts to its Amazon deal, lifting committed supply for the Region’s AWS build to 2,800 MW — after Amazon and NiSource had already framed a 2.4 GW customer need and up to 3 GW of new generation. NiSource’s April 16 release put aggregate customer savings under the GenCo model at about $1.25 billion over the contracts (~$90–$115 a year for residential accounts in that framing); the Times later quoted a NIPSCO spokesperson putting the residential figure as high as about $124 after the Amazon expansion. Those are company projections, not credits already on every meter.

Region N3 original chart. Announced investment — not energized megawatts. Project Rise $7B is part of Amazon’s $26B Forum framing. Photo credit: Region N3 Tech Desk / Nathan P.

Who’s building where (NWI first)

Lake County. Hobart’s Common Council approved real-property tax abatement in January for a roughly 500-acre Amazon data-center package tied to the $15 billion Northern Indiana announcement, with the mayor pointing to a spring 2026 construction window. Hammond’s existing Digital Crossroads hall — Decennial’s roughly 105,000-square-foot building with CoreWeave already on campus — is still a lakeshore asset. What died is the expansion: the city said July 1 that the four-party development agreement for a ~450,000-square-foot, 180-megawatt build at 301 Digital Crossroads expired June 30 after missed milestones, with no further extensions. Times and other wires often used a $7 billion framing for that expansion including equipment; the city called it multibillion. Either way, the contract is gone. (Full peg: BizTech’s Digital Crossroads expiration package.)

LaPorte County. Microsoft’s $1 billion La Porte campus — 245,000 square feet on 489 acres at Radius Industrial Park, up to 200 jobs by the end of 2032 — was announced with IEDC in June 2024; local wires say construction began in June 2026. Google confirmed it is behind Michigan City’s $832 million Project Maize reuse of the old Federal Mogul site, with company language that it will pay 100% of site power costs and a completion target around early 2027.

Porter County. The loudest recent Amazon dollar figure here remains the earlier $87 million Portage / Ameriplex facility — real, but a different scale than Hobart or New Carlisle. No fresh multi-billion Porter hyperscale campus cleared primary IEDC or company press in this review.

St. Joseph / Jasper (northern Indiana jobs corridor). New Carlisle is no longer just a groundbreaking photo. AWS and Inside INdiana Business put operations hires near 1,000 by early June; the Forum’s mid-June figure was about 900. Project Rise in Wheatfield — $7 billion, about 304 acres near NIPSCO’s Schahfer plant, $98 million upfront and more than $23 million a year for a decade of full operation, plus $25 million toward Wheatfield Township water — is the Jasper County extension of the same Amazon map. (Jobs and training detail: published BizTech AWS jobs pipeline.)

Statewide backdrop

Central Indiana is not sitting this out. IEDC and Meta broke ground Feb. 11 on a more than $10 billion, 1,500-acre LEAP District campus in Lebanon — 10 data-center buildings among 13 total, about 300 operating jobs and more than 4,000 peak construction. Google’s Fort Wayne investment grew to $2 billion (Inside INdiana Business, 2024). Those sites sit on different utilities and politics than NIPSCO’s GenCo story, but they are why “Indiana as a hub” is not an NWI-only slogan.

Announced isn’t energized

Hammond’s expired expansion is the cleanest reminder: a unanimous 2025 council vote and a Venturo quote about an 180 MW facility did not equal steel and load online under that contract. Utility Dive’s November 2025 read of Amazon–NIPSCO filings also noted Amazon’s one-time option, by March 31, 2029, to cut contracted capacity by 1,200 MW — a hedge written into the power deal, not a prediction.

Water and wetlands fights around New Carlisle, resident pushback in Hobart and Michigan City, and consumer-advocate questions about who pays for transmission are the other half of “hub.” The dollars on the chart are real announcements. The grid and the aquifers still have to clear them.

Coverage gaps

• Porter County hyperscale beyond the Portage $87M Ameriplex figure remains thin in primary IEDC/company press.
• Vantage / QTS / CyrusOne omitted pending primary 2026 sources.
• Times May 11 full text was paywalled at desk research; Proof matched open lede + house BizTech sister package.

Related reading

• NIPSCO GenCo adds 400 MW for Amazon’s NWI data-center build
• AWS jobs pipeline — New Carlisle training to Jasper County’s Project Rise
• Hammond data-center expansion deal expires after missed milestones