June 27, 2026 | Mark Luis Foster

Artificial Intelligence is becoming commonplace. When we started promoting AI to boards at our chapter meetings a few years ago, the technology was still emerging and seemed to puzzle and bewilder most people. Now, do a Google search and AI is there to answer your questions.  Many boards are embracing the technology to complete their minutes, create communications and review contracts. It’s a brave new world.

But all that power and storage needs to come from somewhere. We’ve been blogging here occasionally about data centers that seem to be the latest controversy in Minnesota, as there seems to be controversies in Inver Grove, Eagan, Hermantown, Farmington and a few other places. Some of these data centers are proposed in areas that impact HOAs due to proximity, water usage and other factors. A recent Star Tribune poll indicated that 63% of the population would be against DC’s coming to their community, and the discontent seems to even transgress party lines.

There’s no question that power and data needs are going to be exponentially greater in the coming years. As AI gets smarter, the strain gets larger. Data center buildouts are going to be a long-running issue, and short of building them in earth orbit (which could actually happen sooner than we think), they aren’t going away anytime soon.

Just a quick search of AI generated searches yield the impact in Minnesota.