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is the Verge’s weekend editor. He has over 18 years of experience, including 10 years as managing editor at Engadget.
Today Microsoft announced its plans to bring a Fairwater AI data center, which it claims is the “world’s most powerful,” online in early 2026. The $3.3 billion construction in Wisconsin is housed at the site of Foxconn’ s failed LCD factory which was announced in 2017, but by the end of 2018 was already being called a “boondoggle.”
The new data center is massive at 1.2 million square feet spread over three buildings on 315 acres of land. Under those roofs are “hundreds of thousands” of Nvidia’s GB200 GPUs, “connected by enough fiber to circle the Earth 4.5 times,” according to Satya Nadella. Microsoft claims this cluster of interconnected GPUs is ten-times more powerful than the fastest super computer and will greatly accelerate its AI training efforts. The company says that multiple other Fairwater datacenters are under construction across the US.
Microsoft is also touting its supposedly environmentally friendly design which minimizes water waste through a closed loop cooling system — it only needs to be filled once and then it’s sealed, eliminating evaporation. Microsoft’s vice chair and president focused heavily on the company’s sustainability efforts when announcing the project, which makes sense given AI’s reputation for absolutely massive energy consumption.
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