Watch: AI's Hidden Housing Boom
AI ‘Man Camps’ Offer Golf, Free Steaks to Lure Workers in Texas
As data centers boom, developers are rushing to build housing and amenities in remote locales
Companies competing for workers to build data centers are finding that a motel room with sluggish Wi-Fi isn’t much of a draw. Try free steaks and golf simulators.
As data-center development has exploded with the rise of artificial intelligence, competition for water and power supplies is pushing construction further into rural areas that often lack the housing and infrastructure to support the hundreds or thousands of temporary workers needed to build hulking warehouses of computer servers. That’s forcing developers to increasingly lean on a stopgap solution that was popularized during the shale-oil boom of the 2010s: sprawling temporary villages known as man camps.