Amazon has announced that it has selected New York City and Arlington, as the locations for its new headquarters.

Amazon claims that it will invest $5 billion and create more than 50,000 jobs across the two new headquarters locations, with more than 25,000 employees each in New York City and Arlington.

The company also announced the selection of Nashville for a new Centre of Excellence for its Operations business. It will be responsible for the company’s customer fulfilment, transportation, supply chain, and other similar activities.

The yearlong quest by Amazon for its second headquarter (commonly referred to as HQ2) was almost like a national competition, with more than 200 local and state governments fiercely competing to submit proposals for a windfall $5 billion investment and the 50,000-person workforce the firm promised to employ.

Amazon, which is valued at $1 trillion, is believed to have received various incentives including tax breaks and subsidies worth more than $2 billion from government officials in New York and Virginia. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo promised $1.5 billion in benefits in return for creating 25,000 jobs.

Critics have often criticised Amazon for being a huge beneficiary of corporate welfare, pocketing more than $1.6 billion in local and state breaks and subsidies (including more than $230 million this year alone) for construction of its data centres and warehouses since 2000.

As the company plans to grow its cloud computing market share, expand its physical retail footprint, and optimise its supply chain, critics believe that Amazon will use the gathered information to extract as many financial resources as it can.

Amazon Centre of Excellence

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