Microsoft is investing billions to build a data center in southeastern Wisconsin. Toby Scott/Getty Images
Microsoft has plans to build a data center in Wisconsin.
Earlier this month, the company purchased more than 400 acres of land, including a pumpkin farm.
Microsoft is one of several tech giants participating in the AI arms race invest in data centers.
This is a machine translation of an article from our US colleagues at Business Insider. It was automatically translated and checked by an editor.
Microsoft buys several acres of land in Wisconsin for a new campus with data centers.
The tech giant’s latest addition is a 407-hectare area it bought from the Creuziger family earlier this month for about $76 million (€69 million), this is reported by the Milwaukee Business Journal.
The property itself is worth just under $600,000 (544,000 euros). The Creuziger family used it for farming and ran a pumpkin farm on it called “Land of the Giants Pumpkin Farm,” the paper reports.
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And Microsoft’s payout is a big win for the family. The deal was more than three times the amount the local government paid the Creuziger family in 2017 under an agreement with the iPhone manufacturer Foxconn had offered, as the Milwaukee Business Journal reported. Although the family was not opposed to selling the property at the time, they hoped to get a higher price for it, the paper said.
In light of the recent sale, “the family wishes the village and Microsoft well and would appreciate their privacy being respected,” David Barnes, the local attorney who represented the Creuziger family, told the Milwaukee Business Journal.
The first construction phase is already underway
Microsoft, meanwhile, has also reached land deals with local county and city governments and has acquired 520 hectares of land in the region for data center development, reports the Milwaukee Business Journal reported.
And the first construction phase, worth a billion dollars (970 million euros), covering around 215 hectares, is already underway, according to the paper. The company expects to create 200 jobs in this first phase, but future construction could create an additional 460 jobs, it says Milwaukee Business Journal.
As part of the AI arms race, tech giants like Microsoft have invested heavily in expanding data centers given the high demand for computing power and energy that AI technology requires. And rural regions of Americalike parts of Wisconsin, are becoming a hotbed for new development.
Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
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