The AI Infrastructure Revolution Happening in Your Community

While headlines focus on massive hyperscale data centers in remote locations, a quieter but significant infrastructure shift is unfolding closer to home. Smaller AI computing centers are beginning to appear deep in America’s towns and cities—at existing telecommunications facilities, at the base of cell towers, and even at power substations—often without local and state officials realizing it. These edge facilities will have nowhere near the power or water requirements of hyperscale facilities—and could be built in ways that minimize water usage, make the electric grid more resilient, and support local community development. How they are built—and how the community is impacted for better or worse—will depend on the incentives and disincentives created by state and local policy. For state and local governments, therefore, understanding this trend and the fiber infrastructure it demands is essential to ensuring their communities are not left behind in the next wave of technological and economic transformation. For utilities with fiber assets or an interest in developing them, edge facilities present a considerable business opportunity—one in which their infrastructure could be the critical enabler. For communities generally, fully understanding the AI infrastructure picture requires understanding this new generation of edge deployments.