RAIN — Week of August 24, 2026

Ask Amy

What need does the Center for Rural AI meet?

Rural America is underfunded and sparsely populated. Part of me is just fine with that. I will keep my wide open spaces, small community, mountain trails, knowing that I will have fewer health care options, worse roads and no Target or Sephora.

Mettje @BannerArt, Del Norte, Colorado

In the age of AI, being underrepresented is bad. Really bad. AI sees rural communities the way tourists do. They drive by, say how neat it is that we have cows, and go home. If a government agency uses AI to measure or plan and we are not in the data, we get misrepresented or passed over. If those same tourists plan a vacation with ChatGPT and the models don't know us, they don't come to our towns, our festivals, our B&Bs.

So what can be done about that?

The Center for Rural AI exists for one reason. AI is being built with little rural input, little rural data, and minimal rural benefit, and we’re changing that. We’re building the tools, solutions, and platforms that enable rural citizens to fully participate in the AI economy and help the AI builders better represent us.

Mettje, I know your work. Your banners hang across Main Street in Durango and tell anyone driving by what this town does all year. The banners do not need a model to do that. The AI models should know what happens here too.

Our mission is here: ruralai.org/about. Read it and then ask me more questions.

Until next week, Amy

Every column starts with a reader question. Yours can be next: ruralai.org/rain

Stories of the Week

Data-center tracker website shows status of builds in Pennsylvania

Gov. Josh Shapiro launched a public comment site and a GIS-based permit tracker for proposed data centers, days after signing an executive order setting siting rules. The state counts at least 100 proposed projects and no operational AI data centers.

The order bars environmental permit review until developers win local approval, pay the full cost of their energy, and meet water conservation standards, real leverage for the small townships fielding these proposals. Residents can flag community opposition directly through the site.

Calix CEO Sees AI as Key to Making Fiber Operations More Predictable

Calix CEO Michael Weening said the company has spent nearly $200 million since November 2023 on an AI platform that automates provider workflows, including flagging subscribers likely to churn. Calix serves about 1,200 providers, some with only a few thousand subscribers.

For rural co-ops and small telephone companies, that is analytics capacity they cannot staff for internally. Weening said pricing stays subscriber-based rather than per-token, which matters if your operating budget cannot absorb a surprise usage bill.

How much of a problem is AI's water use?

Data center cooling consumed roughly 66 billion liters of water in 2023, under 1 percent of US use, but researchers project 731 billion to 1,125 billion liters annually by 2030. Siting, chip efficiency, and renewables could cut that by up to 86 percent.

Cornell's Fengqi You points to Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, and parts of Texas as lower-stress alternatives to Arizona and New Mexico, putting rural counties in the siting conversation. Ask developers whether cooling is closed-loop and what happens in a heat wave.

Tech bills of the week: Data center zoning, NDAs, and algorithmic rent-setting

Rep. Tom Barrett, R-Mich., introduced two bills Thursday: one barring federal agencies from overriding state and local zoning on data centers, the other banning lawmakers from signing NDAs about data center sites and resource use. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., separately filed a bill forcing disclosure of algorithmic rent-setting.

Secrecy pledges and federal preemption land hardest on counties with little zoning authority and no legal staff. Neither has moved yet, but they set the template for fights over who approves the next AI build.

Can smarter surveillance help poultry farms catch bird flu earlier?

Alveo Technologies and AgriNerds are pairing a waterfowl risk model built on radar, satellite imagery, and bird telemetry with a 45-minute on-farm molecular test for avian influenza. AgriNerds issues daily risk grades for more than 160,000 commercial poultry facilities.

Roughly 1,500 farms across 25 states already use the risk data, and Alveo expects USDA approval in the fourth quarter. Earlier detection can mean restricting truck traffic and, eventually, partial depopulation instead of culling a two-million-bird complex.

States, feds scramble to prevent more water cyberattacks

After Iran-linked intrusions hit water utilities in at least seven states, Sens. Adam Schiff and Amy Klobuchar proposed $300 million a year in State Revolving Fund cybersecurity money. Federal agencies also warned of AI-generated exploitation scripts disguised as monitoring tools hitting programmable logic controllers.

The National Rural Water Association and DEF CON Franklin's new Water Watch Center offers direct mitigation help to systems serving fewer than 10,000 people, most community water systems in the country. Small utilities should call before the next bulletin.