How AI Is Making People of 'Modest Means' Rich

A rural Pennsylvania township where a proposed hog barn once sparked fierce opposition is now making way for something far, far bigger. The Wall Street Journal's Will Parker reports that 96 families in Salem Township sold roughly 1,700 acres to data-center developer QTS, a Blackstone unit, for $586 million—an average of $330,000 an acre and an average $5.5 million per family, some of whom were of such "modest means" they lived in double-wide trailers, notes Parker. Their land's draw is what's above the soil: existing high-voltage transmission lines and proximity to gas and nuclear plants that can power energy-hungry data centers for AI.

One couple, Marilee and David Kiliti, got more than $22 million for an 89-acre hog farm that made so little that David worked construction jobs, too; now they're planning a "barndominium"-style dream home with a basketball court and theater room. Not everyone is celebrating. Some nearby residents see the emerging server-farm corridor as a threat to the rural landscape and have posted "no data center" signs. Yet another massive deal—this one involving about 200 landowners and a potential $1.3 billion payday—is already in motion nearby. Read the full piece for more.