Would you turn down $26 million? The 2024 United States Data Center Energy Usage Report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that data centers consumed approximately 4.4% of total U.S. electricity use in 2023.
A company wanted their farmland for a data center, and they said no, according to a WXIX/Gray News report . A mother and daughter in Kentucky did. The decision comes as AI demand continues to grow.
Ida Huddleston and her daughter, Delsia Bare, belong to a family that owns roughly 1,200 acres of farmland in Mason County, Ky. Bare was approached in April 2025 by an unnamed company described as a Fortune 100 firm, according to the report. It offered $26 million for part of the farm to build a massive data center campus just outside the city limits of Maysville. Data centers used about 415 terawatt-hours in 2024, or around 1.5% of the world’s electricity, according to the International Energy Agency’s Energy and AI report. The agency forecasts that figure will more than double to around 945 terawatt-hours (TWh) by 2030. In the United States, data centers could be responsible for nearly half of the growth in electricity demand through 2030, it says. Data centers contribute over 20% of demand growth in advanced economies overall. As of March 2026, the family planned to keep fighting the data center. Since then, the Mason County Fiscal Court voted on May 22, 2026, to rezone 28 properties totaling 2,080 acres for rural industrial use, according to Data Center Dynamics, and in October 2026 it voted unanimously to approve a resolution moving ahead with a hyperscale data center, contracting with Meta, WKYT reported.
It says AI is the biggest growth driver. The family has farmed the land for generations and raises cattle sold across the region. The same pattern shows up around the world. The agency also notes that these forecasts are subject to real uncertainty. The report calls the push for data center land a fight that could alter the future of farmland throughout Kentucky . Some landowners may want to sell, others want to protect their farms, and neither choice is simple.
For young readers, this story is a reminder that AI is not just software. It runs on actual buildings, actual land, and actual power lines. This family had made a clear decision. Whether you agree with them or not, their story raises a fair question about what we are willing to trade for the technology we use every day.
