Microsoft says that it's planning to invest $4 billion in Wisconsin to build a second artificial intelligence data center, bringing its total commitment in the state to more than $7 billion. 

According to a September 18 blog post from Microsoft president Brad Smith, the newly-announced project will be in addition to a $3.3 billion Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, facility slated to come online in early 2026. Smith said the Mount Pleasant campus will be engineered to train the next generation of AI, with hundreds of thousands of Nvidia GPUs linked by enough fiber to circle the Earth four times, and delivering what Microsoft claims will be 10 times the performance of today’s fastest supercomputers. The second data center — slated to open in 2027 — will be located in nearby Fairwater, and will be similar in size and scale to the Mount Pleasant facility.

"This is where the next generation of AI will be trained, setting the stage for breakthroughs that will shape the future," Smith said. "New discoveries in medicine, science and other critical fields will start right here, with the models we train in Wisconsin."

More than 90% of each facility will rely on a closed-loop liquid cooling system that will be filled with water once during construction, and then recirculate that liquid continually. The remaining cooling will be handled by outside air, switching to water only on the hottest days. The company estimated that annual water use will be roughly comparable to a typical restaurant, or to what an 18-hole golf course uses in a peak summer week. Microsoft also said that it is pre-paying for the energy and infrastructure it will consume, and will match any fossil-fuel power it uses one-for-one with carbon-free energy.

The two projects are expected to create thousands of construction jobs and several hundred permanent roles once operations ramp up. Microsoft also partnered with Gateway Technical College to launch Wisconsin’s first Datacenter Academy, and with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee on a manufacturing-focused AI Co-Innovation Lab, initiatives that have already trained more than 114,000 people statewide in AI skills.