Amazon.com Inc. on Thursday launched an unusual plan to establish a second corporate headquarters in North America, signaling the online retail giant’s growth ambitions for the years ahead and setting off a race among local and state governments hoping to win it over.

Amazon said it was soliciting proposals for a new campus location, which eventually could result in the company investing more than $5 billion and creating up to 50,000 high-paying jobs, many in software development and most of them new. Proposals are due Oct. 19, with a decision expected next year.

The move to build a second headquarters, which Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos envisions as a full equal to the company’s Seattle campus, follows years of rapid growth.

The company has built dozens of new warehouses in the U.S. and around the world to fulfill online orders quickly, and recently wrapped up a roughly $13.5 billion acquisition of grocer Whole Foods Market Inc.

The new hiring comes on top of the 100,000 full-time jobs that Amazon said in January it would be adding through mid-2018, mostly in its fulfillment centers.