Biden to Announce $3.3 Billion Microsoft Investment for AI Data Center

U.S. President Joe Biden is set to announce on Wednesday a $3.3 billion investment by Microsoft (MSFT) to build a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center that the White House said will create 2,300 union construction jobs and ultimately 2,000 permanent jobs as part of Biden’s agenda to invest in U.S. workers in infrastructure manufacturing sectors.

To Be Built Near Foxconn Facility That Did Not Materialize

The AI data center is to be built in southeastern Wisconsin, where former President Donald Trump’s administration announced in 2017 a $10 billion investment with Foxconn to build a manufacturing facility for the production of LCD panel products. The project, which Trump called “the Eighth Wonder of the World,” did not come to fruition.

“The datacenter will be built on the same land as a failed $10 billion investment from Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn six years ago, which left behind Wisconsin residents and workers,” the Biden administration said.

‘Investing in America Agenda’

The investment is part of Biden’s “Investing in America agenda,” which is focused on creating jobs in critical sectors like infrastructure, clean energy, semiconductors, and biotechnology by mobilizing private sector investments in the U.S. with legislation like the CHIPS and Science Act.

Biden is set to travel to southeastern Wisconsin to announce the facility on Wednesday around six months ahead of the U.S. presidential election.

Data centers are an essential component of the infrastructure needed in the AI era. The facilities create jobs for the local workforce and can contribute to accelerating AI advancements.

Microsoft said it will invest $3.3 billion by the end of 2026 “to expand its national cloud and AI infrastructure capacity through the development of a state-of-the-art datacenter,” which “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 company also plans to “partner with Gateway Technical College to build a Data Center Academy to 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.”