US Family Rejects $26 Million Offer To Sell Farmland For AI Data Centre: 'We're Not Stupid'

A mother-daughter duo in the US state of Kentucky has turned down a $26 million (Rs 244 crore) offer to sell a part of their farm for a proposed data centre to be developed by an unnamed artificial intelligence (AI) company. The pair said they declined the deal as the data centre would have affected everyone in the community, adding that the developer's pressure only solidified their stance.

The company offered $4.26 million for Ida Huddleston's 71-acre property in Mason County, while her daughter, Delsia Bare, was offered over $22 million for her 463-acre property. The family said the secrecy around the project, particularly the company's refusal to reveal its identity, made it impossible to strike a deal.

"They call us old stupid farmers, you know, but we're not. 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," Huddleston was quoted as saying by WKRC.

While some experts claimed that the data centre project would create 400 full-time jobs and more than 1,500 construction jobs in the county, Huddleston said she doubted the numbers. "It's a scam," she said.

For generations, Ida Huddleston and her family have owned a farm in the region and despite the company's insistence, they have refused to cave in. The family said they did not want a data centre built near them or any of their 1,200 acres of farmland outside Maysville, Kentucky.

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Data Centres And AI

AI tools are becoming a part of daily life, from quick searches to office work and creative tasks. However, experts are warning that even a single question asked to an AI system carries an environmental cost that most users do not see. Each interaction with an AI model requires powerful data centres. These centres consume large amounts of electricity and water to process queries and keep systems cool. As demand for AI grows, so does the pressure on energy resources.

Data centres rely on cooling systems that can consume millions of litres of water, especially in warmer regions. This has raised questions about sustainability, particularly in areas already facing water stress.

According to scientists at the University of California, each 100-word AI prompt is estimated to use roughly one bottle of water (or 519 millilitres). This may not sound like much, but billions of AI users worldwide enter prompts into systems like ChatGPT every minute.