AI data centers are transforming rural land markets — and fueling a backlash

The useful part

What he said could apply to what's happening in dozens of states across the U.S. "When [data centers] first started popping up, nobody really knew much about them," he said at the protest. AI data centers house massive computer servers filled with powerful chips and systems that are needed to run AI models and workloads.

How it works

• AI data centers are transforming rural land markets — and fueling a backlash Tobias Burns At a July protest against data centers in Lubbock, Texas, state Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller took the...
• The centers require vast amounts of electricity and water to power and cool the servers, and because of their large footprint, vast amounts of land.
• In locations across the country, entire secondary economies are popping up around technology construction sites, creating boom towns and trans...

Details worth keeping

"I found out real quick that they were taking up our very best farmland. And [developers] give sometimes 10 times the value, so it's hard for farmers to turn that down." Nationwide, investments in computing power sparked by the new technology of artificial intelligence have set off a commercial land rush, sending property values soaring in unlikely and out-of-the-way places.