Separate from the lawsuit, Clean Wisconsin conducted an analysis of the power used by data centers in Mount Pleasant and Port Washington stating the facilities could use more electricity than all the houses in Wisconsin. “We build data centers in the desert, that’s because we’ve figured out how to run them without using a lot of water,” Smith said adding the company has developed at “closed-loop cooling system.” Smith addressed the water concerns saying, “Lake Michigan has nothing to fear from our data center” and added the company has built data centers in places like Phoenix, Qatar and Abu Dhabi. Microsoft is finishing construction on its first Racine County data center, which is to be completed in early 2026. The company says it will hire more than 400 employees to work at the first data center and once the second data center is open, the total number of employees plans to be nearly 800 for both facilities. Smith said Microsoft is “pre-paying for the energy and electrical infrastructure that we’ll use—ensuring prices remain stable and protecting consumers from future cost increases because of our data center.”
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- Smith addressed the water concerns saying, “Lake Michigan has nothing to fear from our data center” and added the company has built data centers in places like Phoenix, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.
- Separate from the lawsuit, Clean Wisconsin conducted an analysis of the power used by data centers in Mount Pleasant and Port Washington stating the facilities could use more electricity than all the houses in Wisconsin.
- On Sept. 15, Midwest Environmental Advocates, on behalf of Milwaukee Riverkeepers, filed a lawsuit against the city of Racine, which provides water to Mount Pleasant, for documents related to the Microsoft development.
- “This project is creating good family sustaining union jobs across the entire region from carpenters, plumbers and electricians.”
- Thousands of construction jobs are planned to be related to the completion of the data center, the company said.
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While the Foxconn project failed to live up to its original promises, the infrastructure work to bring utilities to the area helped Microsoft choose the property for this development. Create equitable learning environments that help students develop knowledge with familiar apps essential to both academic and future career success. The Microsoft 365 Copilot app brings together your favorite apps and Copilot in one intuitive platform. Microsoft 365 empowers your organization to organize, and safely store files in OneDrive with intuitive and easy organizational tools. The chiller plans to take hot water through a series of pipes, stretching more than 60 miles, and use giant fans, which are 20 feet in diameter, to cool the hot water and then is piped back into the facility.
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Microsoft and We Energies have proposed a special rate specific for data centers to minimize impact on local residents. On Sept. 16, the city of Racine released a document showing that the first Microsoft data center would use 234,000 gallons of Lake Michigan water per day and discharge back into Lake Michigan 81,000 gallons per day in 2026. Microsoft says the Racine County data center would be the first of several facilities, located in multiple states, in the company’s latest initiative to compete with other technology companies like Facebook’s parent company Meta on artificial intelligence. The new project includes construction of the facility and technology infrastructure, according to a company announcement on Sept. 18.
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- The document also stated the rest of the expansion could use up to 2,814,000 gallons of water per year with wastewater discharge of 2,031,000.
- The Microsoft 365 Copilot app empowers your employees to do their best work with Copilot in the apps they use daily.
Microsoft plans $4 billion expansion of Racine County work for an advanced AI data center
The document also stated the rest of the expansion could use up to 2,814,000 gallons of water per year with wastewater discharge of 2,031,000. On Sept. 15, Midwest Environmental Advocates, on behalf of Milwaukee Riverkeepers, filed a lawsuit against the city of Racine, which provides water to Mount Pleasant, for documents related to the Microsoft development. The company plans to build the second largest “chiller,” which is used to cool the technology used in the facility, in the world. Help your students connect and achieve more together, whether in the classroom, at home, or around the globe online with collaborative tools. Spark creativity and collaboration in any learning environment with a variety of Microsoft 365 apps and free templates to choose from.
Microsoft development watched closely by environmental groups
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Smith said the data center has enough fiber cable to circle the Earth four times, and also have a modest annual water use requiring roughly the amount of water a typical restaurant uses annually or “what an 18-hole golf course consumes weekly in peak summer.” Thousands of construction jobs are planned to be related to the completion of the data center, the company said. The second Microsoft data center is planning to house part of what the company calls a distributed training super computer. The latest announcement brings the cost of Microsoft’s Racine County developments to about $7.3 billion, including the $3.3 billion commitment the company made in 2024.
The Microsoft 365 Copilot app brings together your favorite apps in one intuitive platform that keeps your data secure with enterprise data protection. “We will match every kilowatt hour we consume that comes from a fossil fuel source one for one with carbon-free energy we put back onto the grid,” Smith said. “This includes a new 250 (megawatt) solar project in Portage County that is under construction to support this commitment. And our partnership with WE Energies ensures we will continually explore and add energy transmission, generation, and usage—under transparent tariffs that support grid reliability.” “We’ve seen the benefits for Wisconsin workers with tens of thousands of construction workers and skilled labors participating in this project,” Evers said. “This project is creating good family sustaining union jobs across the entire region from carpenters, plumbers and electricians.”