Microsoft has just announced plans to spend $3.3 billion over the next several years to, among other things, build a new AI data center in the state of Wisconsin. Ironically, the location of the data center will be in the same location as a planned Foxconn LCD factory that failed to materialize.
Microsoft's press release states that the data center will be located in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, which is part of Racine County. The company says that up to 2,300 construction jobs will be offered to help build the data center, which is expected to be completed by 2026.
Microsoft added:
Along with building a physical data center, Microsoft will partner with Gateway Technical College to build a Data Center Academy to train and certify more than 1,000 students in five years to work in the new data center and IT sector jobs created in the area.
The company says it will also establish an AI Co-Innovation Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The aim is to link up local businesses and manufacturers with AI experts at Microsoft "to design and prototype AI and cloud solutions." It says it will also partner with a number of local non-profile organizations to help train up to 100,000 people in the state with generative AI skills by 2030.
The announcement of the new Microsoft AI data center will officially be made later today at its future location by Microsoft President Brad Smith. He will be joined by US President Joe Biden, who is promoting the plant as part of his administration's Investing in America agenda.
In a press release from The White House, the Biden administration says the site of the data center will be located in the same space where Foxconn once promised to build an LCD display factory back in 2017 that it said would bring in 13,000 jobs to the community. That factory ended up not being completed.
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