🌐⭐ Hickory at the Crossroads: AI, Data, and the Fight for Our Future ⭐🌐

[hickoryhound]

🔗 Link:
https://thehickoryhound.blogspot.com/2025/10/hickory-at-crossroads-ai-data-and-fight.html

📝 SEO Summary:
Hickory stands at a decisive moment in history. Once undone by globalization and manufacturing collapse, the city now faces the challenges—and opportunities—of artificial intelligence, data centers, and broadband infrastructure. This feature explores how energy demands, civic inaction, and population dynamics are shaping whether Hickory becomes a hub of digital velocity or another cautionary tale of decline.

Key Topics:

• Hickory’s post-industrial decline and lessons from lost manufacturing jobs

• AI-driven infrastructure demands: energy, data centers, fiber optics

• Eric Schmidt’s warning on power capacity and national implications

• Broadband gaps in Catawba County and the Foothills Corridor

• Failures of civic institutions to invest in AI readiness

• The population challenge: retirees, immigrants, and youth outmigration

• Blueprint for resilience: broadband first, workforce training, entrepreneurial anchors

• Policy proposals for data centers, renewables, and regional task forces

🏷 Hashtags:
#HickoryNC #FoothillsCorridor #CatawbaCounty #AI #Broadband #DigitalDivide #DataCenters #CivicRenewal #FutureOfWork #RegionalPlanning