Monday, October 6, 2025

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

Hickory has been here before.

When globalization and trade liberalization rewrote the maps of manufacturing, we hesitated. We waited for old industries to return. They didn’t. Forty thousand jobs vanished between 2000 and 2009. Families splintered, young people left, and a middle-class that once seemed unshakable withered.

Now, as artificial intelligence and digital infrastructure drive a new era of economic transformation, Hickory faces the same test. The question is not whether AI will reshape our world—it already has. The question is whether Hickory will once again drift into decline, or whether we will build the civic architecture to seize a future that rewards us, not bypasses us.


The New Infrastructure: Power, Fiber, and Velocity

AI is not just about clever software. It is about hardware, energy, and scale. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in May that the U.S. will need 90 gigawatts of new power just to feed AI systems in the coming decade. A single nuclear plant produces roughly one gigawatt. The scale is staggering.

Catawba County sits right in this storm. The CommScope sale of its Connectivity and Cable Solutions division to Amphenol this August is not just a balance-sheet maneuver—it ties our region to the very cables and components that form the backbone of AI and cloud computing. Claremont’s facility could either rise as a flagship hub for advanced connectivity or fade into irrelevance if leadership and investment falter.

And then there are the data centers. North Carolina has already courted billions in data-center construction, including Microsoft’s push into our backyard. These facilities promise prestige and property tax headlines but rarely deliver durable jobs—sometimes fewer than 200 employees for billion-dollar sites. They demand massive amounts of water and electricity, while counties often give away the very tax base they were supposed to gain through incentives.

The stakes are obvious. Without rules and foresight, Hickory risks trading one cycle of extraction for another: fiber and power flowing out, wealth and control flowing elsewhere.


Hickory’s Digital Blind Spot

The danger is not theoretical. We already see the patterns of civic inaction.

Last year, local leaders floated the idea of an AI readiness study. It was announced with fanfare, linked to the “Future of Catawba County” summit. But when businesses failed to show up, when chambers and institutions declined to invest, the project died quietly. The opportunity slipped away without so much as a public post-mortem.

Meanwhile, over 13,000 households in our metro remain without reliable broadband. That is not a statistic—it is a hard ceiling on who can participate in a digital economy. Add to that gaps in digital literacy, device access, and civic navigation, and you begin to see how entire neighborhoods are excluded before the race even begins.

It isn’t just infrastructure. Hickory has no incubator network. No AI challenge programs. No structured pathway for a high school graduate to step into digital-era work without leaving the region. We beautify streets and build trails, but the civic foundation for economic velocity remains fractured.


Who Benefits, and Who Doesn’t

The truth is uncomfortable: Hickory has leaned its economy toward demographics unlikely to generate entrepreneurial energy. Fixed-income retirees and under-capitalized immigrants form the backbone of population growth here. Both groups deserve safety and dignity. But structurally, neither group is positioned to launch startups, invest in innovation, or circulate capital with the velocity needed to sustain a thriving middle class.

At the same time, younger adults who do arrive leave quickly. They sense what many of us already know—that the architecture for ambition here is weak. Without decisive change, the pattern will repeat: extraction at the top, stagnation at the bottom, and drift in the middle.


A Blueprint for Circulation, Not Extraction

Hickory does not have to be San Francisco or Austin. But it must be smarter than it has been. Here’s what a real blueprint would look like:

  • Data Centers as Utilities, Not Trophies. Require new builds to use reclaimed water, offset their power demand with renewables, and pay impact fees tied to megawatts consumed. Post decommissioning bonds before construction begins. If companies refuse, they reveal their true intent.

  • Broadband First. Treat high-speed internet as non-negotiable infrastructure. Leverage state and federal funds aggressively. Create a Catawba River basin-wide task force to close last-mile gaps and link broadband expansion to workforce pipelines. The goal should be for full connectivity of the entire Foothills Corridor.

  • Workforce Training with Urgency. Stand up AI-lite training programs through CVCC and LRU within a year—not five years. Focus on practical skills: data handling, automation integration, cybersecurity. Build on what we already know in advanced manufacturing and fiber optics.

  • Entrepreneurial Anchors. Chambers and civic groups should sponsor hackathons, startup contests, and pilot projects for small businesses to integrate AI. Incentivize local ownership, not just global tenants.

  • Civic Alignment. Stop building for ribbon cuttings and start building for resilience. A community that invests in its people—youth, workers, creators—will circulate capital locally. Without circulation, even the best industrial wins will drain away.



High-speed internet is modern infrastructure 

The Internet is no different than water, power, or roads. The opportunity is here: state and federal funds (BEAD, IIJA, and others) are flowing now, but they have to be pulled down aggressively and deployed with discipline.

That requires more than city-by-city projects. We need a Catawba River basin-wide task force to identify and close last-mile gaps, coordinate build-outs across jurisdictions, and ensure expansions aren’t just about fiber in the ground but about real people gaining access.

Every mile of cable should be tied directly to workforce pipelines — training, apprenticeships, remote work hubs, and small business support. The benchmark must be full connectivity across the Foothills Corridor: from Lake James to Lincolnton, from Hickory to Lenoir, from the river’s headwaters to its downstream arteries.

Only then do we flip broadband from a patchwork advantage into a regional engine.



Late Again, or Ready at Last?

The lesson from Hickory’s past is simple: waiting kills. Waiting killed textiles. Waiting killed furniture. Waiting killed the initial inroads into Modern Manufacturing. Waiting will kill our AI future if we let it.

The data centers are coming. The power demands are real. The fiber that runs beneath our feet is more valuable than the furniture that once sat above it. What we decide in the next three to five years will determine whether Hickory becomes a node in the digital backbone or another cautionary tale of missed chances.

This is not about chasing hype. It is about refusing to be left behind a third time.

Because in the AI age, there is no bailout for latecomers. There is only drift—or determination.

Hickory must choose.