Holly Gilvary
RACINE — Microsoft will invest an additional $4 billion to expand its data center campus in Mount Pleasant, according to Brad Smith, the company's vice president.
Smith was joined by Gov. Tony Evers, Racine County Executive Ralph Malicki and Mount Pleasant Village President David DeGroot at Festival Hall, 5 Fifth St., on Thursday to break the news.
"This facility is more than a technological feat," Smith said. "It's a promise to grow responsibly, invest deeply and create opportunities for Wisconsin and for the nation."
With the expansion on the Mount Pleasant campus, Microsoft is investing a total of $7 billion into the project.
The first artificial intelligence data center in Mount Pleasant is expected to go online in early 2026. According to Smith, it will power "the most powerful supercomputer on planet Earth," 10 times more powerful than any other in the world.
"It's an extraordinary resource for this community and state, but (also) for the country and for the world, in terms of what we believe AI has the potential to do to solve the problems that need to be solved as we look ahead," Smith said.
At the peak of the data center's construction, 3,000 construction workers were hired on, and Microsoft is now hiring for around 400 permanent jobs, according to Smith.
DeGroot said that since the village first sat down with Microsoft leaders to discuss the construction of a data center, Microsoft "has become a trusted partner that is integrating into our community and exceeding promises that benefit our village and entire state."
Malicki, similarly, highlighted Microsoft's involvement in Racine County, including its partnership with Gateway Technical College to create a data center certificate program, its investment in Racine County's Summer Youth Employment program and giveaway of 750 laptops.
"This kind of local engagement matters," he said. "It creates conditions for sustainable growth, and today's announcement reflects that the next phase of investment from Microsoft is a major step forward, not only for Racine County, but for the entire region."
Smith addresses water, energy usage
Records released Wednesday from the City of Racine, which will provide water service to the data center, showed that Microsoft expects to use about 2.8 million gallons of Lake Michigan water per year.
However, "Lake Michigan has nothing to fear from our data center," Smith said Thursday.
More than 90% of the data center will rely the closed-loop liquid cooling system, where cold water comes in from one part of the data center, cools the computer chips and is then pumped to a chilling plant. The remaining portion of the facility will use outside air for cooling, switching to water only on days where the outside temperature surpasses 85 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Smith.
"When Foxconn was planning to build here, they were permitted to use more than 7 million gallons every day — so 2.8 million a year is tiny compared to 7.8 million a day," he said. "We will use enough water to fill four (Olympic-size) swimming pools. Lake Michigan has enough water to fill 2 billion swimming pools."
The data centers will, however, use a substantial amount of electricity, Smith said. Together, the Mount Pleasant data centers could use more than 900 megawatts of electricity.
To prevent village and county residents' electricity costs from rising, Microsoft plans to pursue tariffs for electricity so that the company pays more and covers the cost, including the cost of improving the electrical grid. Smith also said that whenever necessary electricity comes from fossil fuels, Microsoft will invest into the neighboring grid an equal amount of new electricity from carbon-free energy sources, such as wind or solar power.
"We are doing everything we can, and I believe we're succeeding, in managing this issue well so that you all don't have to pay more for electricity because of our presence," he said.
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