Microsoft Expands Data Center Footprint in Wisconsin with $13 Billion Investment

Mount Pleasant's village board unanimously approved Microsoft's ambitious plan to construct 15 additional data centers, marking a $13 billion taxable development. The project, spanning nearly 9 million square feet across two lots northwest of its existing facility, will be built on land originally earmarked for Foxconn's failed manufacturing plant.

The expansion underscores the intensifying race among tech giants to secure AI infrastructure. Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Oracle are aggressively expanding computing capacity to accommodate Nvidia-chip-packed data centers required for training and running AI models. Three new substations will support the facilities, with construction jobs projected to last a decade.

Notably, the development carries minimal additional resource burden—Microsoft requires no extra water beyond its existing 8.4 million gallon annual allocation from Racine. This strategic reuse of the Foxconn site transforms a $250 million municipal liability into a cornerstone of Wisconsin's tech infrastructure.