Microsoft has put parts of construction on a $3.3 billion data center in Mount Pleasant, Wis., on hold to accommodate new designs.
“We are currently reviewing our plans for a second Mount Pleasant data center expansion,” a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement. “We have halted early construction work for this second phase while we assess the scope and recent changes in technology and consider how this might affect the design of our facility.”
January 2024 broke ground on a portion of the megaproject being built to expand the company’s cloud infrastructure and artificial intelligence capabilities.
After considering new designs, Microsoft will “discuss with local and state authorities any impact these changes may have on our current or future permissions,” the spokesperson added. “We anticipate that this process will last months. In the meantime, our commitment to and construction of our planned data center campus remains a high priority for our business.”
The first phase of the project, identified as Area 3B, is on track to be operational by 2025, the spokesman said. Construction on two other areas, known as Area 3A and Area 2, has been halted.
Sean Ryan, spokesman for the village of Mount Pleasant, said that “village officials have no reason to believe this will affect the overall scope or nature of Microsoft’s project. We appreciate Microsoft being transparent with village leaders about the construction schedule for its Mount Pleasant data centers.”
The company said it is still on track to spend $3.3 billion on the project before the end of 2026. The company indicated that it plans a significant future in AI when, on January 3, in a entry to the company’s blogMicrosoft announced that it plans to invest $80 billion to build artificial intelligence data centers around the world by fiscal year 2025.
Microsoft bought the site from Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer Foxconn, which had planned to use the land for an LCD screen manufacturing center. This plan was abandoned after some construction and infrastructure work had already begun.
