These self-described “country hicks” from Kentucky won’t be selling their farmland anytime soon, and there’s evidently no amount of money – especially AI data center money – that could change their mind.
It’s a tale as old as time. Some big corporation comes to Small Town, America and starts waving around millions of dollars in an attempt to convince residents to hand over their land. Granted, some people will take the money and run. But for others – like Ida Huddleston and her daughter, Delsia Bare, in Maysville, Kentucky – there’s no amount of cash that you could offer to make them give up their home.
Though the company’s name is not available, what’s being described as one of the “world’s largest artificial intelligence companies” apparently has its eyes set on some land in Northern Kentucky. They want the sprawling farm land so that they can build a massive data center to further aid their AI development. But there’s only one problem… the residents who own the land aren’t budging.
Ida Huddleston and her family own about 1,200 acres of farmland near Maysville, Kentucky. The land has been in the 82-year-old’s family for around 200 years, and the sentimental value is worth more than any sum of money. According to the Huddleston family, an AI company came to their home last year and offered up $26 million for half of the 1,200 acres they own. The land itself is valued at somewhere around $6,000 an acre, so the offer they received was about ten time more than that.
Interestingly enough, they initially accepted the offer (who would blame them?). But once they found out it was an AI data center that was knocking on their door, they rescinded the deal. Now, they find themselves as one of the many faces fighting the good fight against AI data centers, as Bare said to the Wall Street Journal:
“I never thought I’d be in a battle with a data center. I thought I was about as far out in the boondocks as you could get.”
That just so happens to be the type of land that these AI data centers are on the hunt for. Little did the AI representatives know or expect, the country people that are living on the property they are seeking out don’t have any interest in helping data centers expand.
Bare put the thought of selling the family’s farm land like this:
“If I step off of this piece of property and it becomes something for an AI hub, then I have failed to occupy and I can be held accountable for that on the Judgment hour.”
I’ve got to say… I love that Ida Huddleston and their family are standing strong and refusing to let an AI data center move in and set up shop on their land.
The company and the town could still opt to built the data center without Huddleston’s land if other landowners in the area are willing to sell. That would likely mean that the Kentucky woman’s property would be located right next to or near the data center, which in turn could hurt their property value. But Huddleston still refuses to give in, because to her and her family, the land they own in the Bluegrass State is priceless.
And if you think there’s any chance the Huddleston family changes their tune… I don’t think that’s going to happen. This is apparently what Ida and Delsia told the reps from the AI company once they backed out of the deal:
“Kick rocks and don’t come back.”
Hell yeah… and I’d like to see AI even try to kick rocks.
