Microsoft has announced that its Fairwater data center in Wisconsin is now fully operational ahead of schedule. The Fairwater data center is located in Mount Pleasant and when its construction was announced in 2024, Microsoft noted that it would cost US$ 3.3 billion.
“With our Fairwater datacenter now fully operational, Wisconsin is now home to the world’s most powerful supercomputer,” Brad Smith, Vice Chair and President of Microsoft, said in a press release. “This campus will help power the next generation of AI innovation globally and provide long-term economic opportunity locally through hundreds of highly skilled jobs and continued investment in the region.”
“Microsoft’s decision to invest here elevates our community into a destination for innovation and advancement. As this campus continues to grow, it will create lasting opportunities for residents, strengthen our regional economy and help position Wisconsin for long-term success,” David DeGroot, Village President of Mount Pleasant, added.
The data center forms part of Microsoft’s AI Wide Area Network where a global network of AI data centers is able to operate as a single, powerful AI machine.
These AI data centers are packed with NVIDIA GB200 servers. Some regions such as the UK and Norway support NVIDIA GB300 servers. Each of the GB200 rack contains 72 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs, linked through a 1.8 TB NVLink connection that gives these GPUs access to 14 TB of pooled memory.
To cool this hardware the company uses a mix of closed-loop liquid cooling and air cooling from the outside world. On hotter days, air-cooled sections of the data center will use a limited amount of water. Microsoft notes that the data center’s water usage is equivalent to the weekly consumption of an 18-hole golf course.
Regarding power, the firm has said that it is pre-paying for infrastructure and energy to keep power prices stable. It is also funding a 250 MW solar plant in Portage County.
Through its AI data centers, Microsoft intends to increase the usage of AI by giving businesses in Wisconsin, and the world, access to more AI compute power. To further that goal, it has expanded broadband access in Sturtevant, a village in Racine County, Wisconsin.
Microsoft has said that it will spend a further US$ 4 billion on a second facility, also located in Mount Pleasant, adjacent to the Fairwater data center. That facility is still under construction and is expected to be completed in 2028.