According to a WKRC report, an anonymous AI company approached a landowner in Northern Kentucky with an extraordinary $26 million offer to buy a portion of their farmland to build a data center. Despite the life-changing sum, Ida Huddleston and her family, who have owned and cultivated the land for generations, firmly rejected the offer.
“They call us old stupid farmers, you know, but we’re not,” Huddleston asserted. “We know whenever our food is disappearing, our lands are disappearing, and we don’t have any water—and that poison. Well, we know we’ve had it.”
Delsia Bare, Huddleston’s daughter, shared a short but rich history of their family's land. For generations, the Huddleston family has been cultivating the soil and providing food for countless families beyond their own. Bare described how their ancestors persevered through some of the nation’s darkest times, such as raising wheat during the Great Depression and helping keep bread lines supplied when much of America was struggling with poverty and hunger.
“Stay and hold and feed a nation,” Bare told WKRC. “$26 million doesn’t mean anything.”
The AI company, presumed to be one of the major players in the industry, reached out to Huddleston because of the size and the location of the 1,200-acre property. The AI company sought to acquire roughly half of the land for a big data center project. Farmland in Mason County typically sells for around $6,000 per acre. In an attempt to woo the Huddlestons to sign, the AI company offered $26 million, nearly 10X the local land value. Despite the lucrative offer, Huddleston and her family declined without hesitation.
With the AI boom advancing at a breakneck speed, AI companies are competing to construct data centers nationwide. According to Statista, the United States leads the world with more than 4,400 data centers. For comparison, the United Kingdom, which ranks second, has roughly one-eighth that number.
The proliferation of data centers over the last few years has brought many shortcomings. Some include the requirement for enormous amounts of electricity and water to operate; these facilities are stretching the local electrical grids to their limits, with energy bills soaring and depleting the water supply. It is understandable why residents in many areas are refusing to welcome more data centers that jeopardize their quality of life.
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Unfortunately, not everyone has the conviction or financial stability to say no to $26 million. The AI company reportedly contacted several other landowners in the surrounding area. According to Bare, some landowners caved in and agreed to sell. Despite the Huddleston family's stance and determination to protect their legacy, it appears the AI company will still get to build its data center somewhere nearby.
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Zhiye Liu is a news editor, memory reviewer, and SSD tester at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.
Why don't data centers wanting land do a little research? Instead of trying to displace farmers buy the land from China (or lobby the government to eminent domain of it), or Blackrock, or Bill Gates? Beyond that they could try to buy land not being used for farming. The PR department may need to have a talk with the department doing land acquisition or location selection.Reply
Reply Simple, the land is already prepped for construction. No trees, level, and it's (likely) near utilities (power) large enough to support the data center, the other utility (water) is a simple matter of making a well large enough because there is no city, county, or state law laws restricting their usage on wells.Zaranthos said:Why don't data centers wanting land do a little research? Instead of trying to displace farmers buy the land from China (or lobby the government to eminent domain of it), or Blackrock, or Bill Gates? Beyond that they could try to buy land not being used for farming. The PR department may need to have a talk with the department doing land acquisition or location selection.
Problem is the greedy government will indirectly force a lot of sales. Maybe not in this particular case but as other nearby properties are sold say for industry or housing developments this causes the value of all other farmland to increase in value. The tax appraisers will value the land on what you can sell it for uses other than farming. At some point the tax will get so high per arce that it is more than the profit you can make farming it. There are some law to try to prevent this but it still happens. The poor guy who has his RV parked on a couple acres will get forced to sell his land to avoid the government taking it for not paying the inflated taxes.Reply