PORT WASHINGTON, Wis. — The end users have been revealed for the data center campus planned by Vantage Data Centers: Oracle and OpenAI will operate the Port Washington site for a Stargate expansion.
The $15 billion project dubbed Lighthouse will generate 4,000 construction jobs and 1,000 long-term positions.
“These types of supercomputers make our manufacturing even more competitive than it ever was,” Dale Kooyenga, President of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Area of Commerce tells Wisconsin’s Afternoon News. “When you talk about robotics, animation and AI. . . we can now take out more inefficiencies and be more productive.”
Kooyenga says the 4.5 gigawatts of data center capacity will contribute to advancements with driverless cars, personalized medicine and national security efforts. The only other sites announced for the Stargate expansion plan so far are in Texas.
“For the hardware with this AI, the Milwaukee region is absolutely going to be a leader with this announcement,” Kooyenga says.
The plans come as other Southeast Wisconsin communities push back against data center developments, with public pressure forcing Microsoft to pull the plug on a data center project in the Village of Caledonia earlier this month.
Construction on Lighthouse is expected to begin soon and be complete by 2028.
