Biden touts Microsoft AI center on site of Trump’s failed Foxconn deal
Biden touts Microsoft AI center on site of Trump’s failed Foxconn deal
President Biden on Wednesday hailed a new Microsoft artificial intelligence center in Wisconsin as evidence of a “historic boom” in U.S. manufacturing that highlighted former president Donald Trump’s failure to deliver on his promise of a job-rich Foxconn plant in the same spot.
Biden appeared in Racine County, Wis., near the site of the ill-fated Foxconn manufacturing campus, to announce Microsoft’s $3.3 billion investment in an AI data center. The investment is expected to create 2,000 permanent jobs and 2,300 temporary union construction jobs, and Microsoft will also invest in workforce training programs in the state.
“My predecessor made promises, which he broke more than kept. Left a lot of people behind in communities like Racine,” Biden said. “On my watch, we make promises and we keep promises — and we leave no one behind.”
Appearing before an invited audience of local government officials, business executives and union leaders, Biden said Microsoft’s plans for an AI data center and associated job-training programs would be “transformative, not just here but worldwide.”
Brad Smith, Microsoft’s vice chair and president, said the new data center would be among the most advanced facilities of its kind globally and would create jobs statewide with its purchases of steel, generators and other equipment.
Nick Fick, an official with Local 430 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said the project would generate employment for union electricians over the next 10 to 15 years.
The presidential visit to Racine carried obvious political overtones. The stage in an industrial building at Gateway Technical College, with a manufacturing space visible behind it, was decorated with American flags, a Microsoft banner and signs that read, “President Joe Biden Investing in America.”
Many of the remarks seemed designed to troll Trump. Biden mocked Trump for repeatedly promising to address the nation’s aging infrastructure without actually doing so.
“We had infrastructure week every week for four years and didn’t build a damn thing,” he said.
The White House billed the appearance as part of Biden’s “Investing in America” strategy, seeking to draw a sharp contrast with his predecessor, who spent Tuesday posting angry messages on social media about his criminal trial for allegedly falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.
The trip marks Biden’s fourth visit this year to the swing state of Wisconsin, where he narrowly defeated Trump in 2020.
In 2018, when Foxconn, at Trump’s urging, announced plans to create 13,000 good-paying jobs in Mount Pleasant, Wis., he celebrated the company’s $10 billion venture as the “Eighth Wonder of the World.”
Wielding a golden shovel, Trump touted the Foxconn flat-panel display factory as evidence of a broad manufacturing revival stirred by his 2017 tax cuts and tariffs on imported steel. “You know, 18 months ago, this was a field, and now it’s one of the most advanced places of any kind you’ll see anywhere in the world. It’s incredible,” Trump crowed.
The Foxconn facility was to have included dozens of buildings dotting a giant plot of land three times the size of New York’s Central Park. But the project accomplished little more than the destruction of 100 local homes and farms before the company drastically scaled back its ambitions.
In 2020, Wisconsin state officials denied the Taiwanese company special tax credits, saying it had abandoned its original commitment, employed fewer than 520 people and spent just $300 million. Local taxpayers were left with a tab of more than $500 million for site preparation.
By last summer, Foxconn had built four structures on one corner of the site, which were in sporadic use, according to locals. One large building that was originally billed as a manufacturing facility was being used as a warehouse, one former employee said. Foxconn at the time said it employed 1,000 people in Mount Pleasant building computer servers. The flat-panel display factory never materialized.
“They dug a hole with those golden shovels and then they fell into it,” Biden quipped.
Microsoft gave the site new life in March 2023, when local officials announced that the company would build a data center on about one-tenth of the roughly 3,000-acre campus. In November, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) said Microsoft would expand the investment. Wednesday’s announcement confirms that the company plans to spend $3.3 billion on the AI center by the end of 2026, according to the governor’s office.
For Biden, the Microsoft announcement represents evidence that his embrace of industrial policy — the use of government money and dictates to shape the economy — is paying dividends. The president steered three major pieces of legislation through Congress that will pump trillions of dollars into modernizing the nation’s roads, bridges, ports and internet connections; subsidize development of clean-energy technologies; and fund domestic production of advanced semiconductors.
Taken together, the policies represented a dramatic shift in the government’s management of the economy after four decades of bipartisan deference to market outcomes.
Smith said Biden’s policies had been important for corporate expansions.
“When you connect the dots between the infrastructure investment, the chips investment, the climate technology investment, the work to set new AI safety standards and cybersecurity protection — you put those things together? That actually helps substantially in enabling the whole tech sector to invest and grow and create new jobs in the United States,” he said.
Private companies so far have committed to spending $866 billion on ventures related to the administration’s agenda, according to the White House. More than $537 billion in public spending has been announced, with more to come.
The administration is directing a significant chunk of its industrial policy spending to manufacturing-dependent communities that were hit hard by competition from inexpensive Chinese imports in the 2000s. By 2020, Racine had lost roughly 20 percent of the 21,000 factory jobs it had in 2001. Manufacturing employment has recovered to almost 19,000 today, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Wednesday’s announcement comes as Microsoft aggressively invests in expanding its footprint in AI development, pouring billions into deals that will cement its place as a key partner for leading AI companies in the United States, Europe and Asia.
In a community where residents have reason to doubt heavily hyped projects, Smith said Microsoft was being careful to “under-promise and overdeliver.”
Work on the Mount Pleasant site already has begun. Construction cranes are in place, steel has arrived, and some workers have been hired, he said.
Amid concerns about the environmental toll of electricity-hungry data centers, Microsoft also said it would build a 250-megawatt solar project in Wisconsin. The company vowed to ensure water was “managed responsibly” at the site, which will use recycled water for its cooling system.
Microsoft — which was battered by antitrust scrutiny throughout the 1990s — has emerged as one of the most sophisticated tech lobbyists in Washington, and it is increasingly seeking to shape the future of AI regulation.
As part of its investment in Racine, Microsoft will partner with Gateway Technical College to develop a program that will train residents for data center and other technical careers. The company is also building a “Co-Innovation Lab” on the campus of the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, which will connect manufacturers in the state with the company’s AI experts.
That undertaking will include TitletownTech, a venture capital partnership between Microsoft and the Green Bay Packers, Evers’s office said. The Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. is providing two $500,000 grants.