00:00The AI boom may be coming for college campuses.
00:03AI data centers have been growing at an exponential pace across the past couple of years,
00:08and one of the main assets that they're looking for is property.
00:12Amazon recently bought the Virginia campus of George Washington University
00:16back in February for $427 million.
00:19I actually spoke with a former faculty member from George Washington University,
00:24and she was one of the professors that was affected by the sale.
00:28She mentioned that there was no transparency from the administration
00:31and that she actually didn't know, and a lot of other faculty members didn't know,
00:35that the sale was going through.
00:37They actually found out about the sale from the student newspaper, the GW Hatchet.
00:41U of M is another player in this AI boom.
00:44University of Michigan decided to buy a little under 200 acres of land in Ypsilanti, Michigan,
00:51specifically to develop an academic research center that they're calling a computing center.
00:56The Ypsilanti citizens have actually been very opposed with this proposition that came out.
01:01They've gone to the media, they've done things on the ground,
01:04and actually just recently, the Ypsilanti Town Board of Trustees passed a resolution unanimously
01:09to oppose the development.
01:11Throughout my reporting, one of the concerns that was brought up to me
01:14was about how AI is overreaching on this higher education system that we're seeing.
01:20These universities are buying into the AI boom.
01:23They're assisting in this AI brain drain that we're seeing,
01:27which is where we're seeing students unable to critically think for themselves
01:30and are overrelying on these AI systems and these AI resources.
01:34For more on data center real estate, you can check out my full article on fortune.com.
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