Building an AI Data Center in Minnesota

Pine Island, despite its name, is not an island. It’s your average Midwestern farm town, population 3,800. Highway 52 cuts through it like a spine, with little to see on either side except corn and billboards—unless it’s winter, in which case it’s just billboards. Most advertise burgers or death: McDonald’s (seven miles north), Newt’s Burgers (thirteen miles south), judgment day (“After You Die, You Will Meet God”), plus two competing southeast Minnesota cremation services. Only one billboard, on the south end, is locally relevant. It’s newer, smaller, and appears to be homemade. It reads: NO DATA CENTER.