Northfield moves to ban hyperscale data centers (Rice and Dakota Counties)

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Northfield News reports…

On the topic of data centers, Northfield residents made clear Thursday that their voices would be heard — and, more specifically, their hands.

About two hours after Planning Commission Chair Bill Kuhlmann gave up trying to hold back applause from an audience that filled the council chamber and two overflow rooms, the Northfield Planning Commission moved toward banning hyperscale data centers, directing staff to formulate a model for the ban based on power consumption.

The second agenda item began as a request from staff to address what was described as a “typo” or “error” in the Land Development Code surrounding data processing facilities, or data centers. Specifically, a setback of 3,950 feet from planned parks, trails or other recreational features was recommended to be changed to a 200-foot setback. The 3,950-foot setback meant it was effectively impossible for any data center to be proposed.

The article highlights many of the public and elected officials speeches…

The decision comes as the city of Northfield has worked to attract industrial development to its Northwest Industrial Park, which it advertises on the city webpage as “a prime data center and industrial development opportunity.” One of the city’s main strategic priorities as of late has been to diversify its tax revenue, focusing largely on industrial development in the northwest park.

Mathias Hughey, the city planner, also noted the city’s strict environmental regulations that would still apply to any proposed development. Once Kuhlmann opened the floor to public comment on the topic, residents made it clear they weren’t budging on the matter.

In the end…

The motion, which would recommend to City Council that the city list data-processing facilities as a prohibited use in Northfield, passed unanimously.

The Foundation for Rural Service tours policymakers to learn about rural broadband with a stop in Ruthton MN

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The Foundation for Rural Service reports…

Thanks to the generosity of NTCA members, the Foundation for Rural Service (FRS) creates opportunities for policymakers to experience firsthand the realities of rural America. Last week, 14 staff members from the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate joined FRS for the 2026 Congressional Broadband Tour — an immersive, four-day educational program that this year spanned South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska. We believe the true impact of broadband is best understood by visiting communities where reliable connectivity is transforming lives, businesses, healthcare, education, agriculture and public safety. That was the tour’s purpose: to move beyond maps and funding formulas and invite congressional staff to experience rural broadband where it is being built, maintained and used every day.

I’ll skip right to the Minnesota portion of the tour…

From Flandreau, S.D., we traveled to the second and third states, where attendees witnessed broadband construction in action. Stops with Terry Nelson, general manager of Woodstock Telephone Company (Ruthton, Minn.), and Ryan Boone, CEO of Premier Communications (Sioux Center, Iowa), highlighted the complexity of fiber deployment — from underground boring to splicing fiber on the side of the road — and underscored the significant investments required to reach even the smallest rural communities. Many thanks to Ryan Boone and the team at Premier Communications for the tour of their central office and for the opportunity for congressional staff members to try their hand at splicing fiber.

The group also saw how broadband has become indispensable across virtually every sector of rural life. At Dordt University’s Agriculture Stewardship Center, a presentation highlighted the importance of agriculture to the state economy and how data-driven equipment, remote monitoring, and connected technologies help farmers improve efficiency and sustainability. The stop also gave attendees the chance to get inside a brand-new John Deere combine.

Lismore Cooperative Telephone updates Nobles County Board on FTTP network and line extension progress

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The Globe reports…

The Nobles County Board of Commissioners received an update on Lismore Cooperative Telephone’s Fiber to Home broadband project at their Tuesday meeting. Lismore Cooperative – the firm that will own and operate the broadband services involved – General Manager Travis Halbur and Finley Engineering associates presented.

Whitney Adler, the project manager with Finley, said there are two projects going at the same time: the Fiber-to-the-Premises (FTTP) project and a line extension project .

The FTTP project – which kicked off in August 2025 – will cover roughly 650 total route miles, with about 123 miles going specifically to people’s homes. Around 1,443 potential customers will be impacted.

As of right now, the project is in phase one.

“Most of the design, permitting, contracts is all complete; construction is going on,” Adler said. “We’re about 71% through phase one construction, 28% through the overall, all four phases. Phase two will be starting real soon in the near future.”

According to Adler, the project has exhausted a quarter of its $13 million grant so far. About $9.85 million remains in the budget.

“We have three mainline (plow) crews going, one drop crew, a few splicing crews, and the goal ultimately is to get about three to four miles plowed per day just to get the customers of Nobles County basically in line with fiber,” Adler said.

The line extension project covers 16.5 route miles and 4.5 total drop miles, serving an estimated 56 potential customers. With two mainline plow crews, the project’s expected completion is no later than Dec. 31, 2026.

Do workers actually use Artificial Intelligence on the job?

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KSTP 9 looks into the question: Do workers actually use Artificial Intelligence on the job? (Apparently only a third of workers have used it.)…

Google has scaled back its plans for a proposed data center in Hermantown (St Louis County)

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The Minnesota Star Tribune reports…

Google has scaled back its plans for a proposed data center campus in Northeast Minnesota in response to community concerns, the tech giant said this week.

The initial 1.8 million square-foot campus planned for Hermantown is now expected to be 1.66 million square feet, shrinking from four data center buildings to three, reducing the amount of disturbed wetlands and land.

The project, kept secret by city officials for a year, has fueled enormous pushback in this town of 10,000 near Duluth. Since it was revealed as a data center last year through a Minnesota Star Tribune public records request, the project has generated a lawsuit, and inspired political candidates and a highly organized grassroots opposition group protesting everything from tax subsidies to nondisclosure agreements.

“We’ve been listening,” Google representative Tyler Huebner said at a Monday Hermantown City Council meeting.

Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy spokesperson talks in Ely about data centers (St Louis County)

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The Timberjay reports…

Kathryn Hoffman, CEO of the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, spoke earlier this month to a Tuesday Group gathering about AI data center projects in Minnesota and their environmental implications.
Data centers are already common around the state of Minnesota — “data center” acting as a catchall term for rooms full of computers that store and share data — but the recent trend of hyperscale data centers is new, resulting from the exponentially growing demand for data storage and computational power created by large language models associated with AI.
Hyperscale data centers are recognizable by their enormous physical size, modular scalability, and need to consume enormous amounts of electricity. They use components that allow new additions to be easily added and can individually consume as much power as entire cities.

They talk about present and future scenarios…

According to Cleanview, a market intelligence firm, there are 30 active data centers within the state. Of these, only two are hyperscale centers: Meta’s two buildings in Rosemount, which have power capacities of 168 MW and 140 MW. According to Hoffman, Minnesota is a potential new location for companies looking to build hyperscale centers, especially as Virginia and Texas — two states that have led the country in data center construction — begin to fill. Minnesota’s availability of water and electricity makes it a prime target.
Hoffman said that it would not take many data centers to massively increase electricity demand in the state, citing a statistic from the Star Tribune which reported that if just ten of these facilities were built, they would consume as much electricity as every household in the state. She warned that the increased energy demand would likely raise energy bills for taxpayers in the state and make it far more challenging for Minnesota to meet its goal of becoming carbon-free by 2040.
Several hyperscale projects have been proposed around Minnesota, although often under the cover of non-disclosure agreements signed with city officials. A lack of transparency has surrounded many of the proposed projects. Hoffman said that a whistleblower was the first to alert environmental groups about the proposals.

MPR journalists talk about how data centers are spurring more folks to run for office

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MPR reports…

The controversial issue of building data centers is roiling the Minneapolis North Loop neighborhood. Residents packed a meeting Wednesday night about a proposed data center for a 13-acre site that includes the old Star Tribune printing plant.

Public meetings in other Minnesota cities faced with data center projects have also been packed. The centers are not only igniting public debate but they also seem to be motivating more people to run for public office.

MPR News host Cathy Wurzer spoke with MinnPost reporter Brian Arola, about why data centers are motivating candidates to run in upcoming elections.

Listen to the full interview for more information especially in Faribault.

Google is visiting MN communities (Pine Island & Hermantown) where they are looking at data centers Goodhue & Olmstead and St Louis Counties)

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MPR reports…

Staffers with tech giant Google turned on the charm and put in some face time in Minnesota this week, as the company tried to smooth over some ruffled feathers and win over naysayers in two small towns where it hopes to build massive data centers.

Wednesday evening Google hosted what it called a community celebration in Pine Island, about 20 minutes northwest of Rochester, with free food, live music and family activities.

Meanwhile, 200 miles to the north in Hermantown, just outside Duluth, Google hosted an open house to answer questions from area residents about the hyperscale data center it wants to build there.

The event in Pine Island was pretty laid back as people gobbled up the free food and kids jumped in bouncy houses, a sharp contrast to the Hermantown meeting, where data center opponents disrupted Google’s presentation and several of them were escorted out by police.

The meetings come as Google faces some uncertainty with both projects. In Hermantown, where the project still needs city council approval, the proposal is facing intensified opposition after recordings were leaked of senior Hermantown officials mocking data center opponents.

The Pine Island data center project is also now on hold, even though city officials have signed off on it while a judge considers the merits of a lawsuit seeking a more thorough environmental review.

Doug Dawson from CCG Consulting looks at the FCC definition of broadband

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Doug Dawson from CCG Consulting looks at the FCC definition of broadband…

The FCC definition of broadband of 100/25 Mbps was adopted in March 2024. However, Commissioner Rosenworcel had been pushing for the increase to 100/20 Mbps for several years before that. It had been clear to everybody but the Ajit Pai FCC that the 25/3 Mbps definition of broadband was obsolete when the FCC’s mapping in 2022 showed that 90% of homes already had access to 100 Mbps download speed.

All of this leads me to ask if the 100/20 Mbps definition is already obsolete. Recent data from OpenVault says that 43% of U.S. households now subscribe to speeds faster than 500 Mbps download and 70% of homes subscribe to speeds of 200 Mbps or faster. It’s hard to look at these statistics and think that 100/20 Mbps should be the standard.

Unfortunately, the definition of broadband has political and financial overtones. A higher definition of broadband would declare that certain technologies are not really acceptable broadband. If we buy the arguments from NTCA and NRECA, then satellite broadband and FWA cellular would no longer be considered broadband. A huge percentage of cable company networks still have upload speeds far below 100 Mbps, even though there are numerous technology fixes for them to upgrade to faster, and even symmetrical speeds.

In a perfect world, the definition of broadband would be increased regularly to reflect that reality of the marketplace. But that’s not going to happen with this FCC, and in fact, in 2025, Commission Carr asked if the 100/20 Mbps definition is too high.

What is the right definition of broadband?. The easiest starting point for looking at download speeds is to look at the historical evolution of the definition of broadband from 4/1 Mbps, to 25/3 Mbps, to 100/20 Mbps. I’ve shown the following chart before that just trends forward that historic growth trend. If the definition of download speed continues on the same growth curve as from 1996 to 2022 (when the definition should have been 100 Mbps), the following definition of broadband is projected.

This suggests the minimum definition of download broadband for 2027 would be 250 Mbps. That doesn’t seem at all out of line considering the OpenVault numbers that say that 70% of U.S. homes already subscribe to speeds faster than 200 Mbps.

Here’s the Minnesota broadband speed goals…

237.012 BROADBAND GOALS.

Subdivision 1.Universal access and high-speed goal.

It is a state goal that:

(1) no later than 2022, all Minnesota businesses and homes have access to high-speed broadband that provides minimum download speeds of at least 25 megabits per second and minimum upload speeds of at least three megabits per second; and

(2) no later than 2026, all Minnesota businesses and homes have access to at least one provider of broadband with download speeds of at least 100 megabits per second and upload speeds of at least 20 megabits per second.

It’s worth nothing that in Minnesota, that “unserved locations” are defined as

households or businesses lack access to wire-line broadband service at speeds of at least 100 megabits per second download and at least 20 megabits per second upload.

That

EVENT Aug 20: Northfield Planning Commission will hold a public hearing on data center regulations

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KYMN reports…

The Northfield Planning Commission will hold a public hearing tonight on a proposed zoning amendment that would dramatically reduce the required setback for data processing facilities, commonly known as data centers, from 3,950 feet to 200 feet from existing or planned parks, trails and recreational features.

The proposal has drawn attention as data centers have become a controversial issue nationwide, with critics raising concerns about energy consumption, water use and, in some communities, development agreements negotiated behind closed doors.

City officials, however, say the amendment is not connected to any pending data center project.

“This is really part of the city’s regular review and housekeeping of our zoning ordinance,” City Administrator Ben Martig said during a recent interview.

According to Martig, the city adopted extensive standards for data processing facilities several years ago after a public review process. Those regulations addressed issues such as noise, energy use, visual impacts and compatibility with surrounding properties. Staff later concluded that the nearly 4,000-foot setback requirement from parks and trails appeared to be a drafting error and lacked any engineering, environmental or operational basis.

Under the proposed amendment, the setback would be reduced to 200 feet, matching the distance already required from residential properties.

Martig said the existing standard effectively makes development difficult because trails and recreational features are often located near industrial areas. The amendment is one of several zoning “housekeeping” changes currently under review, including revisions to industrial block length requirements.

Minnesota Schools are looking at AI policies. Examples from Morrison, Stearns and Ramsey Counties

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Last week, I wrote about one Minnesota student’s role in helping to craft a national artificial intelligence policy for schools. This week, I see that a few schools have been busy, as KSTP reports on a few. In Royalton (Morrison County)…

On Monday, the Royalton school board approved a new AI policy for its students and staff.

“There’s probably three themes,” LePard said. “One is safety for staff and students, and how they use things with AI, student academics and staff instruction.”

He said teachers will be posting the guidelines in middle and high school classrooms.

He said they primarily fall into four quadrants.

“Anywhere from the continuum of no AI use to full AI use,” he explained. “And then somewhere in between there, whether it might be just brainstorming or it might be using it as a resource or a source in their schoolwork.”

Next week, he said, the district’s teachers and staff will begin reviewing the new policy.

Designed for students in middle and high school, Royalton’s new policy puts an emphasis on responsibility and transparency.

In St Cloud (Stearns County)…

“Our amazing superintendent was actually one of the first in Minnesota to … bring up an AI policy and to implement one in our school. So we kind of were the leaders of the line,” said Acho.

In St Paul (Ramsey County)…

Some schools, like the St. Paul district, are still working out their AI policy. St. Paul Public Schools told KSTP, “the Board of Education has created a goal for the district to adopt one by spring 2028. Here is the language of that goal:
“By the end of the 2027–2028 school year, the Board will adopt an Artificial Intelligence Governance Policy that addresses the safe, ethical, human-centered, equitable, environmentally responsible, and instructionally meaningful use of AI across teaching, learning, critical thinking, workforce readiness, accessibility, data privacy, academic integrity, staff support, and district operations. The policy will include expectations for public reporting on how SPPS is preparing students and staff to use, question, evaluate, and create with AI.”

In the meantime, SPPS says it has robust resources around responsible staff and student use of AI, available on its website.

Help for other districts…

Click here for the Minnesota Department of Education’s guiding principles for AI in the classroom.

Is it AI or is it art? And how do we differentiate? The Walker is looking into it

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MPR News covers a story about art gallery patrons accusing art of being “AI slop” and The Walker figuring out what to do with that. It’s a teachable moment for everyone involved – with teachers and learners writing the curriculum in real time…

The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis is adding new explanatory language to an exhibition after visitors mistook an artist’s digitally rendered work for generative AI.

Joe Dobrow recently took his two children to the Walker. They wandered from exhibition to exhibition, eventually settling in front of a screen in a dark hallway.

The screen was looping the 2026 video “Field Recordings” by artist Olalekan Jeyifous. It is the first solo museum exhibition for the New York-based artist who is known for his immersive speculative world-building artworks. The video features realistically animated people in leafy riverine settings, sometimes in groups, sometimes with deer, sometimes tinkering with what seem like remnants of analog technology.

“My kids were fairly intrigued with it,” Dobrow said, but “it seemed to me to be almost entirely AI slop.”

Part of the solution…

The Walker, along with the rest of the museum world, is grappling with how to develop policy about the display and disclosure of AI-generated or AI-assisted art. “We are in the process of developing one,” she said.

Jasper and Huldisch said the new explanatory language for the exhibition will be installed this week.

“I recognize that AI usage raises very real ethical questions, and I understand why people want transparency around it,” Jeyifous said. “The difficulty right now is that we don’t have much nuance in the language to describe it. Saying that AI was utilized somewhere in a process can very quickly become perceived as ‘this artwork was entirely AI-generated,’ even when those are fundamentally different things. Disclosure can provide useful context, but it can also unintentionally become the lens through which the entire work is understood, regardless of how marginal that tool was to its production.”

RESEARCH: To what extent does community-level broadband connectivity reduce the time individuals spend waiting for goods and services?

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There is an interesting scholarly article (Time poverty, waiting, and broadband adoption: Evidence from the US by gender and income) on the impact of broadband access on people’s discretionary time. In a nod to time-saving, I tried to think of the most efficient way to share the information and focus on broadband access while flagging other related topics in the article.

Here’s the promise of the research, in bullet points…

  • Time poverty, or the lack of time to invest in discretionary activities aimed at maintaining one’s physical or mental well-being, has long been a human concern (Kalenkoski & Hamrick, 2013; Vickery, 1977).
  • We examine waiting time because, differently from time devoted to other activities, which may reflect personal preferences, waiting time is almost universally disliked and has no intrinsic benefit (Holt & Vinopal, 2023; Schwartz, 1974).
  • Through this lens, high-speed broadband connections constitute a critical first step in efforts to expand communities’ access to goods and services, minimize waiting, and free up time for more fulfilling activities (Turner & Grieco, 2000).
  • Our analysis finds a significant association between living in counties with higher broadband adoption levels and reduced time spent waiting for goods and services. The effect is particularly pronounced among women, who are disproportionately responsible for time-intensive, unpaid household labor (Brenan, 2020). Yet, we also suggest that complementary policy interventions may be necessary to mitigate time disparities across socio-economic lines.

And a look at ROI (when return in time) from a government/citizen perspective…

Addressing waiting-based inefficiencies calls for targeted solutions, and broadband and digital technologies offer one. To this extent, tax return–free filing programs that integrate administrative data could save Americans an estimated 225 million hours annually, while online voter registration cuts administrative burdens and boosts turnout by reducing long heavy processes (Goolsbee, 2006; Herd & Moynihan, 2018). Similarly, remote work saves the average person 72 min of commuting each day, allowing individuals to reallocate time to leisure and caregiving (Aksoy et al., 2023).

Yet, these time-saving gains hinge on both the provision of digital services online and citizens being able to take advantage of those through reliable internet connections (Mossberger et al., 2022). Consequently, broadband operates as the foundational infrastructure enabling both the delivery and use of digital services. In other words, lacking broadband, citizens, businesses, and governments cannot effectively use online services while digital service provision becomes impractical.

Recognizing this, federal and state policymakers in the United States have invested significantly in digital infrastructure – most notably through the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the American Rescue Plan Act – to extend broadband to every household. These place-based strategies reflect a growing understanding that broadband is not just a technological solution, but a foundational element of equitable service delivery and local development. As such, we argue that, similarly to other place-based characteristics, broadband adoption can shape individual outcomes through institutions, resources, and community dynamics (Chyn & Katz, 2021)

And their hypotheses:

  • As broadband subscriptions increase within a county, the amount of time residents spend waiting for goods and services decreases.
  • The negative relationship between county-level broadband adoption and waiting times is stronger among women than among men.
  • The negative relationship between county-level broadband adoption and waiting times is stronger among low-income individuals than among higher-income individuals.
  • The negative relationship between county-level broadband adoption and waiting times is strongest among low-income women.

Will the workforce be ready for building data centers and rural networks when BEAD projects hit the streets?

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RCR Wireless News reports…

The US has two infrastructure priorities converging on one scarce resource: people who know how to build networks. AI data centers are sucking skilled workers into a construction boom, just as the long-delayed BEAD initiative finally starts moving into deployment. And actually, it is not just about the fiber technicians; the same labor pool includes electricians, HVAC specialists, surveyors, trenchers, engineers, and other trades needed to build broadband networks. The numbers are already uncomfortable. The industry was estimated in 2024 to be short around 58,000 workers to meet BEAD’s goals. AT&T plans to add 3,000 technicians this year. Meta has its own fiber-training programme. Meanwhile, the US telco workforce has fallen from 1.4 million in 2001 to fewer than 598,000 in 2025.

There is a stark economic imbalance here, of course. A hyperscaler or major carrier building AI infrastructure can afford recruitment, training, and wages that smaller community-based broadband operators cannot. Every worker pulled toward a lucrative data-center project is potentially one less available for a rural fiber build. And this is before the AI construction boom really peaks. Economist Anirban Basu expects labor pressure to worsen in 2027 as AI infrastructure spending expands. So the irony is clear: America’s AI infrastructure boom could make it harder, slower, and more expensive to deliver the connectivity needed by Americans still waiting for broadband.

Congressional candidate Jake Johnson (CD1) talks about data centers at New Ulm Town Hall meeting (Brown County)

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The [New Ulm] Journal reports…

Democratic nominee for Minnesota’s first congressional district, Jake Johnson, visited New Ulm for a town hall meeting on Monday.

He was asked about data centers…

Johnson fielded multiple questions about artificial intelligence (AI) technology, including the uses of the technology and the data centers needed to sustain it.

Johnson said he believed there is a way for AI technology to be helpful for moving society forward, but the reality is there is justifiable fear of what AI could do if misused.

“We need a Congress that recognize to make sure the benefits of AI are economic benefits to southern Minnesota while protecting against the potential harm,” he said. “We also have to make sure the gains are not just realized by tech billionaires.”

Johnson said the question of AI data centers and their impact on natural resources had come up at each of his town halls.

He supports a moratorium on data centers in the country until four metrics are achieved. First, eliminating non-disclosure agreements for elected officials. He said there needed to be an open public conversation about data centers. Second, assurances of protection for natural resources and increased electrical costs are not pushed on to local citizens. Third, if the data centers are built it, it needs to be done by local union workers. Fourth, any profits gained from the data center must stay in the state.

“Anything short of those four metrics being achieved represents an extraction and exploitation of our way of life,” he said.