Microsoft announced plans Sept. 18 to spend $4 billion to construct a second data center in Mount Pleasant.
The announcement brings the company’s total cost on Racine County developments to around $7.3 billion, after the company made a $3.3 billion commitment in May 2024 — with a visit from former President Joe Biden.
In 2024, people familiar with the project told the Journal Sentinel that Microsoft could easily spend upwards of $10 billion over the next two decades, due to the amount of land the company controls in Mount Pleasant’s Wisconsin Innovation Park.
The increase means more jobs for Wisconsinites, Microsoft says. But environmental groups warn of the toll its water and electricity intake could take.
What is new about the additional facility?
According to Microsoft, the new facility will be the most advanced AI data center in the world.
Microsoft president and vice chair Brad Smith said Sept. 18 that the plan is for the facility to house hundreds of thousands of the world’s most powerful NVIDIA graphic processing units, which will deliver “ten times the performance of today’s fastest supercomputers.”
The new Racine County data center will be the first of several facilities, located across multiple states, in the company’s latest initiative to compete with other technology companies’ artificial intelligence, Microsoft says.
What is already under construction?
Microsoft started construction on its first Racine County data center in 2024. The project is set to be completed in early 2026.
Construction for the second data center is projected to finish by the end of 2028, according to Microsoft, and will involve thousands of construction jobs.
What are the water usage concerns surrounding the data center project?
On Sept. 17, the city of Racine released records projecting that the first Microsoft data center in Mount Pleasant would use up to 2.8 million gallons of water from Lake Michigan in 2026.
The city had withheld the records from environment groups and media for months, and released them two days after Midwest Environment Advocates sued the city over the delay on behalf of Milwaukee Riverkeeper.
Additional expansions, like the one announced Sept. 18, could use around 2.8 million gallons of water per year, with more than 2 million gallons of wastewater discharge, according to the document.
Microsoft says the Mount Pleasant data center will use a cooling technology design that aims to reduce the amount of water needed to keep equipment cool and properly functioning.
Smith addressed water concerns at the Sept. 18 announcement, stating that more than 90 percent of the new facility will use “a state-of-the-art closed-loop liquid cooling system, filled during construction and recirculated continuously,” while the rest of the facility will use outside air for cooling and only switch to water “on the hottest days.”
“The result is a technological milestone — a data center with enough fiber cable to circle the Earth four times, yet its annual water use is modest, requiring roughly the amount of water a typical restaurant uses annually or what an 18-hole golf course consumes weekly in peak summer,” Smith said.
How much electric power is needed?
In addition to the water usage concerns, environmental advocates have warned of the energy toll.
According to an analysis of estimates for power used by data centers in Mount Pleasant and Port Washington, environmental advocacy organization Clean Wisconsin found the two will together total 3.9 gigawatts of power — or enough to power 4.3 million Wisconsin homes.
Wisconsin has around 2.8 million housing units, according to U.S. Census data.
Smith said Microsoft is “pre-paying for the energy and electrical infrastructure that we’ll use—ensuring prices remain stable and protecting consumers from future cost increases because of our data center.”
He said the company will additionally match every kilowatt hour the project uses that comes from a fossil fuel for carbon-free energy they “put back on the grid.” The company’s commitment involves a 250-megawatt solar project in Portage County that is currently under construction, Smith said.
Ricardo Torres contributed to this report
Contact Kelli Arseneau at (920) 213-3721 or karseneau@gannett.com. Follow her on TwitterauKelli
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Here’s what to know about the new $4 billion Microsoft AI data center in Mount Pleasant
Reporting by Kelli Arseneau, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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