- Data centers have injected billions into Wisconsin’s construction market as other sectors slow.
- Microsoft‘s $3.3 billion Mount Pleasant project opened the door to megascale facilities statewide.
- Projects from Meta, QTS, Vantage and Microsoft promise thousands of construction jobs.
- Projects have sparked debate over electricity use and water consumption.
Data centers are credited for buoying the general construction market as demand falls in other sectors and in Wisconsin has injected billions of dollars of investment and created thousands of construction jobs. The union construction sector has touted these massive facilities, used for housing computing equipment that run Internet and artificial intelligence services, for the work they provide now and in the future.
Recently, the conversation around data centers has changed since Microsoft’s announcement more than a year ago, with different reactions from construction unions, public officials, environmental groups, business experts and concerned residents.
There are 47 data centers in Wisconsin, according to Data Center Map, and some of them are housed in existing multi-tenant office buildings or mid-sized standalone structures. But Microsoft’s 2024 announcement for a $3.3 billion, 1.5 million-square-foot data center facility in Mount Pleasant opened the gate for massive server houses into the state…