Universities are buying and selling property for data centers, prompting concerns about an AI brain drain
Fortune Joshua Hong
Universities are selling or buying land for data centers as electricity, water, and fiber access makes those properties more valuable than campus space. Amazon Data Services paid $427 million for George Washington University’s roughly 120-acre Virginia Science and Technology Campus, while the University of Michigan is pursuing a $1.25 billion research computing center. The deals shift university resources toward AI infrastructure (and away from classrooms and research sites) and trigger faculty and local opposition over transparency and long-term impacts.
Why it matters
The George Washington University recently sold its Virginia campus to Amazon, and The University of Michigan proposed a new $1.2 billion data center development.
