They Raised Hogs on an 89-Acre Farm and Couldn’t Get Out of Debt. Then a Data Center Made Them a $22 Million Offer.
The AI data-center gold rush is turning overlooked rural land into gold, minting an unlikely class of millionaires.
Marilee and David Kiliti spent decades raising hogs on their 89-acre Pennsylvania farm, but they were barely scraping by. When land developers showed up two years ago offering them $22 million for their land, the couple thought they were being pranked. They never realized they were sitting on an AI goldmine.
The Kilitis are just one of 96 families in Salem Township who sold roughly 1,700 acres to QTS, a Blackstone-owned data-center company, for a combined $586 million, The Wall Street Journal reports. Existing transmission lines near a natural-gas plant and nuclear facility make the land valuable to AI companies. Neighboring landowners are now eyeing a second deal worth $1.3 billion.
Even though many towns are rejecting AI data centers, the families who sell are cashing in big. It’s proof that the AI boom isn’t just minting tech billionaires. It’s making millionaires out of hog farmers too.
Marilee and David Kiliti spent decades raising hogs on their 89-acre Pennsylvania farm, but they were barely scraping by. When land developers showed up two years ago offering them $22 million for their land, the couple thought they were being pranked. They never realized they were sitting on an AI goldmine.
The Kilitis are just one of 96 families in Salem Township who sold roughly 1,700 acres to QTS, a Blackstone-owned data-center company, for a combined $586 million, The Wall Street Journal reports. Existing transmission lines near a natural-gas plant and nuclear facility make the land valuable to AI companies. Neighboring landowners are now eyeing a second deal worth $1.3 billion.
Even though many towns are rejecting AI data centers, the families who sell are cashing in big. It’s proof that the AI boom isn’t just minting tech billionaires. It’s making millionaires out of hog farmers too.
