Microsoft will build a £5.2B AI data centre in Wisconsin, reflecting its grand UK AI investment and expanding global AI infrastructure leadership.
Microsoft has announced plans to invest £5 billion in the “world’s most powerful AI data centre” in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin.
This project mirrors the scale and ambition of the company’s recent £10.9 billion investment in AI in the United Kingdom.
The ‘world’s most powerful AI data centre’ will be constructed in two stages. The first phase, which involves building a £2.44 billion facility named Fairwater, is expected to go live in early 2026. The second data centre will go live in three years at a cost of £2.94 billion.
Together, the data centres are designed to produce “ten times the performance of today’s fastest supercomputers,” according to a statement from Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President of Microsoft. This is the infrastructure that companies are looking to build to train the next generation of AI models.
Scalable AI
The Fairwater site will house “hundreds of thousands” of NVIDIA GPUs, in clusters connected by “enough fibre to wrap the planet four times over.
Microsoft says the facility is not just built to run AI workloads but to “create them”, supporting advanced models in medicine, science, and engineering. “This is where the next generation of AI will be trained, setting the stage for breakthroughs that will shape the future,” Smith said.
Similar to its UK investment, Microsoft is presenting Wisconsin as both a regional and global AI hub, enabling customers across industries to accelerate adoption.
Sustainable design
Microsoft is designing both facilities to be models of sustainability. Over 90% of cooling will be concentrated in a closed-loop liquid system, eliminating operational water waste. The remainder of the facility will rely on outside air cooling, with water only used during extra-hot summer conditions.
As Smith said, the facility’s “annual water use is modest, requiring roughly the amount of water a typical restaurant uses annually or what an 18-hole golf course consumes weekly in peak summer.” For energy, Microsoft will prepay for electrical infrastructure to avoid cost inflation for local consumers. Additionally, the company will match kWh provided by fossil fuels with carbon-free energy, supported by a 250-MW solar project now under construction.
Once Phase One is operational, the data centre will support 500 full-time employees, expanding to 800 once the second is completed.
Through partnerships with Gateway Technical College, Microsoft has launched Wisconsin’s first Data Centre Academy, aiming to train over 1,000 students in five years. The company has also supported AI skilling initiatives for over 114,000 people across the state and co-funded ecological restoration projects to enhance its community impact.
