Data Center

Rural Internet Access Critical for AI Competitiveness: Connected Nation

Rural America risks falling behind in the AI race without foundational infrastructure

Akul Saxena

Sep 19, 2025 — 3 min read

Photo of (left to right): Brent Legg, Executive Vice President of Connected Nation; and Drew Clark (moderator), CEO of Broadband Breakfast, at the Resilient Critical Infrastructure Summit, Thursday, Sept. 18, 202

WASHINGTON, Sept. 19, 2025 — Connected Nation is pushing to build internet exchange (IXPs) points in underserved markets as AI applications strain current infrastructure.

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The idea for the national non-profit’s engagement with IXPs emerged after discovering Iowa schools were paying roughly 25 times the internet rates of major metropolitan areas, the organization’s Executive Vice President Brent Legg said in a fireside chat with Broadband Breakfast CEO Drew Clark on Thursday.

“We realized that one of the reasons why that region was having to pay so many middlemen to get to Chicago is that there was no neutral meet point for networks in eastern Iowa,” Legg said in the conversation at the Resilient Critical Infrastructure Summit in Washington.

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Data Center IXPs Rural Access Brent Legg Drew Clark Broadband Breakfast RCI Energy Iowa Kansas Mississippi Wichita State University Amazon AWS AI Rural Middle Mile