Microsoft Invests $40 Billion in Second Wisconsin Data Center for AI

Microsoft has announced a significant investment of 40 billion dollars to build a second data center in Wisconsin. The first data center, which is set to go online in early 2026, has already seen an investment of 33 billion dollars. This new data center will be equipped with tens of millions of NVIDIA Blackwell GB200 chips, capable of processing artificial intelligence models. The company's president and vice chairman highlighted that the first data center in Wisconsin will house these advanced chips, underscoring Microsoft's commitment to enhancing its cloud infrastructure to meet the growing demand for AI capabilities.

The competition among cloud infrastructure providers to build capacity for companies looking to run AI models is intensifying. With over 700 million users of OpenAI's ChatGPT, which leverages Microsoft's Azure cloud, software providers from Adobe to Salesforce are increasingly integrating AI features to attract customers. This investment is part of a broader strategy by Microsoft to match the energy consumed from fossil fuels with carbon-free energy contributions to the grid. The company aims to ensure that its data centers do not increase costs for neighboring communities by pre-paying for the energy and power infrastructure it will use, thereby stabilizing prices and protecting consumers from future cost increases.

Located 150 miles northwest of the data center, a solar power plant under construction will provide 250 megawatts of electricity. The combined power demand for both the data center and the solar power plant is expected to exceed 900 megawatts. The initial data center is built on land originally planned for a manufacturing factory by Foxconn. It is estimated to use up to 2.8 million gallons of water annually, significantly less than the 7 million gallons of water Foxconn was permitted to use daily. Microsoft's CEO emphasized that the performance of the new data center will be ten times faster than the fastest supercomputer currently available, enabling unprecedented levels of AI training and inference workloads.

The second data center is planned to be of similar scale to the first and is expected to be operational by 2027 or later. The company has carefully considered the design and construction of the second phase, ensuring it aligns with their strategic goals. Earlier this week, it was revealed that the company has allocated 155 billion dollars for additional infrastructure spending in the UK by 2028. Additionally, the Nebius Group in Amsterdam announced that Microsoft has agreed to invest 194 billion dollars over five years to lease AI data center capacity.