Amidst the AI data centre backlash, a Missouri farmer is inviting developers to buy his land

Across the US there are two voices rising out of the ordinary, one propagating the AI boom as the natural future of the world, and the other resisting it, calling it the doom that humans are bringing upon themselves. In numerous states, people have carried out rallies and protests, even formulating laws that prohibit the development of data centres in their localities. From high water usage to noise and air pollution, multiple matters have been raised against them. But there is one person, a former farm bureau chief, who is inviting developers to buy his land in order to build an AI data centre, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal.AI data centres boomBlake Hurst, a farmer in Atchison County, Missouri, who led the Missouri Farm Bureau from 2010 to 2020, invited data centre developers to bid on his land in a WSJ op-ed, writing, "developers, make me an offer." His farm sits roughly 40 miles from the proposed White Cloud Acres project in neighbouring Nodaway County, a data centre campus that local reporting has valued at $6.3 billion and that county commissioners halted on July 21 with a moratorium of up to six months.Hurst's pitch runs against national polling that puts o...