Blackstone Data-Center Ambitions School a City on AI Power Needs

The power lines weren’t even built, yet ran into resistance at every turn.

They would encroach on more than 100 properties and houses, hitting home values and crossing people’s yards. Few saw them coming — not city officials, nor local homeowners — until employees of the state’s largest utility came calling with designs to build high-voltage wires on their land.

The lines were set to hook into the latest piece of Blackstone Inc.’s data-center empire. In the process, they would lay bare to the city of Fayetteville, Georgia, and surrounding residents just how power-hungry the AI revolution will be.

QTS, the data-center developer that Blackstone bankrolls, ...