▶ Watch Video: Georgia homeowners are being forced from their homes to help power AI data centers
Sell your home, or the state will take it — that’s the ultimatum some homeowners in Georgia say they are facing amid the AI boom.
Utility giant Georgia Power is planning to build a new transmission line to in part help power new data centers. It estimates 70-80% of the power on the new line will help serve data centers and the remaining 20-30% of power will serve the state’s growing residential and commercial demand.
According to the company, increasing demand has outpaced the capacity of its existing grid and building a new transmission line requires acquiring more than 300 parcels of land, including residential properties.
Ansley Brown’s childhood home in Coweta County, which she said was built when she was 5 or 6 years old, is just one of the properties impacted.
“It’s ours,” she told CBS News. “It’s our family. We belong here.”
Her mother wanted the property to serve as “true generational wealth,” Brown said, adding that now “it’s being stripped from us.”
“It’s theft”
Brown’s mother recently came to an agreement with Georgia Power to sell. If she didn’t, Brown said the utility could have sought to acquire the property through eminent domain — which is a legal process that allows private property to be taken, with compensation, for projects determined to serve a public purpose.
“To us it’s theft. It’s literally a billion-dollar company stealing land from smaller people, people who can’t fight back. We don’t have the money to fight Georgia Power,” Brown said.
Holly Lovett, a spokesperson for Georgia Power, said eminent domain “is always … a last resort for us and it’s something we never want to do.”
The company said it feels as if it’s done the process responsibly, but Brown disagrees.
“You can’t tear down 35 miles of rural Georgia and it not hurt something or somebody. And to say that you’re doing it in the name of data centers is a slap in the face to us, our community, our animals,” she said.
A few months ago Brown took her story to TikTok and began sharing stories of others in similar situations. She said that while she knows it’s too late to save her home, she doesn’t want to see this happen to others.
“My mom wants an apology. She wants an apology from Georgia Power. That’s it,” Brown said. “For an entire year, they have bullied her and there is no sorry. So that’s what we want. We want an apology from Georgia Power. “
When asked if the utility company is willing to apologize, Georgia Power told CBS News they “have worked hard to be transparent, negotiate in good faith” and “make the process as easy as possible.”
As for who is behind the data centers, the company said it doesn’t publish lists of customers to protect safety and security.