{"id":770766,"date":"2026-07-18T19:34:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T19:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/770766\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T19:34:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T19:34:18","slug":"how-ai-is-making-people-of-modest-means-rich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/770766\/","title":{"rendered":"How AI Is Making People of &#8216;Modest Means&#8217; Rich"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"storyParagraph\">&#13;<br \/>\n                                        A rural Pennsylvania township where a proposed hog barn once sparked fierce opposition is now making way for something far, far bigger. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/real-estate\/commercial\/the-americans-striking-it-rich-in-the-data-center-buildout-71c6a8a8?mod=djem10point\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wall Street Journal<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/real-estate\/commercial\/the-americans-striking-it-rich-in-the-data-center-buildout-71c6a8a8?mod=djem10point\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">&#8216;s<\/a> 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\u2014an average of $330,000 an acre and an average $5.5 million per family, some of whom were of such &#8220;modest means&#8221; they lived in double-wide trailers, notes Parker. Their land&#8217;s draw is what&#8217;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.&#13;\n                                    <\/p>\n<p class=\"storyParagraph\">&#13;<br \/>\n                                        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&#8217;re planning a &#8220;barndominium&#8221;-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 &#8220;no data center&#8221; signs. Yet another massive deal\u2014this one involving about 200 landowners and a potential $1.3 billion payday\u2014is already in motion nearby. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/real-estate\/commercial\/the-americans-striking-it-rich-in-the-data-center-buildout-71c6a8a8?mod=djem10point\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read the full piece<\/a> for more.&#13;\n                                    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#13; A rural Pennsylvania township where a proposed hog barn once sparked fierce opposition is now making way&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":770767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,28208,7258,3234,74],"class_list":["post-770766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-blackstone","tag-data-centers","tag-pennsylvania","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=770766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/770767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=770766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=770766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=770766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}