AI’s impact in Washtenaw County, from tech boom to data centers

Our new three-part series digs into AI’s impacts in Ann Arbor’s tech industry, its utilization in Washtenaw County’s educational world, and the ongoing debate about data centers in several Washtenaw County communities.

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Left to right: Khalid Mahmood Malik, chief technology officer of the Ann Arbor- and Flint-based AI deepfake detection company ProbeTruth; Carlos Lopez (center), assistant superintendent of Ypsilanti Community Schools, in Ypsilanti Community High School’s AI lab; and Kathryn Haushalter, a Saline Township resident who is seeking intervention in a data center project there. Malik and Haushalter photos by Doug Coombe; Lopez photo by Noah Elliott Morrison.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has had rapid, transformational effects around the world, and Washtenaw County is no exception. In a new three-part series, Concentrate’s Drew Saunders digs into AI’s impacts in Ann Arbor’s tech industry, its utilization in Washtenaw County’s educational world, and the ongoing debate about data centers in several Washtenaw County communities. To read the series, follow the links below.

AI has transformed Ann Arbor’s tech sector, but what will businesses do if the bubble bursts?

AI is creating rapid change in Washtenaw County education, from elementary school to higher ed

Data centers in Washtenaw County: Economic boon or environmental liability?

Author

Drew Saunders is a freelance business and environmental journalist who grew up bouncing between Whitmore Lake and Ann Arbor. After graduating with a Bachelor of Science in journalism from Eastern Michigan University, he got his Master of Science from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. He received an award for environmental journalism from the Detroit chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists in 2025 for a story entitled “Detroit Underwater.”

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