Microsoft says it is investing $3.3 billion in the AI data center it is building in Wisconsin.

US President Joe Biden visited the site in Mount Pleasant, Racine County, on Wednesday to announce the news.

The data center is set to come online by 2026. As part of the project, Microsoft said it is co-funding a new solar energy project which will generate 250MW of power.

Microsoft broke ground on the facility in September, and said at the time that the project would cost $1 billion.

However, the company now plans to invest $3.3 billion in the site to “expand its national cloud and AI infrastructure capacity.”

It has not released details of the hardware it is installing at the data center, but said it will “help enable companies in Wisconsin and across the country to develop, deploy and use the world’s most advanced cloud services and AI applications to grow, modernize and improve their products and enterprises.”

The project will create 2,300 construction jobs, Microsoft said. The company is also partnering with Wisconsin’s Gateway Technical College to build a data center academy which it said will “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.”

To offset the site's power consumption, Microsoft said it is working with energy company National Grid to co-fund a 250MW solar energy project in Wisconsin. This will be up and running by 2027.

Microsoft president Brad Smith said: “Wisconsin has a rich and storied legacy of innovation and ingenuity in manufacturing.

“We will use the power of AI to help advance the next generation of manufacturing companies, skills, and jobs in Wisconsin and across the country. This is what a big company can do to build a strong foundation for every medium, small, and start-up company and non-profit everywhere.”

The Mount Pleasant site was initially earmarked for a manufacturing plant operated by electronics giant Foxconn. However, a planned $10 billion investment, announced in 2017 and championed by former President Donald Trump, never fully materialized.

Foxconn did open a spherical data center on the site in 2021, but plans to manufacture LCD screens there were shelved, and now Microsoft is building on the land instead.

“This is a watershed moment for Wisconsin and a critical part of our work to build a 21st-century workforce and economy in the Badger State,” said Wisconsin governor Tony Evers. “Microsoft is a blue-chip corporation that recognizes the strength of Wisconsin’s workers, infrastructure, economy, and our quality of life. Microsoft has chosen to locate and invest here because they know the future is here in Wisconsin.”

As reported by DCD, Microsoft brought 500MW of new data center capacity online last year, and plans to double that figure in the next 12 months.