President Joe Biden will travel to Racine, Wisconsin, on Wednesday to announce a $3.3 billion investment from Microsoft to build a new artificial intelligence data center.
The data center will be built on the same property as a planned $10 billion Foxconn facility that former President Donald Trump had praised during his presidency as a major renaissance of technology manufacturing in the US
But these plans never fully came to fruition. The Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer later drastically scaled back plans for the factory that Trump once called “the eighth wonder of the world”, reducing the number of new jobs from 13,000 to about 1,000 positions that are now filled, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
Microsoft’s investment in the artificial intelligence data center is expected to employ 2,300 unionized workers and create 2,000 permanent jobs over time, the White House saidadding that nearly 4,000 jobs have been created in Racine, with a third of them in manufacturing, and 177,000 in Wisconsin since Biden took office.
Microsoft also plans to partner with Gateway Technical College in Wisconsin to develop a training center for 1,000 residents to prepare them for data center and STEM roles by 2030, with the goal of employing up to 2,000 people in permanent roles in its facilities in Racine, at the White House. he said. The technology giant will also invest in training 1,000 business leaders to adopt AI in their operations.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump has repeatedly stated that the economy during Biden’s presidency has been worse compared to his time in office, frequently pointing to rising inflation and interest rates in recent months.
Biden and administration officials recently traveled to key states to highlight his economic record, such as legislation investing in infrastructure and clean energy, which the president said leads to the creation of higher-paying jobs in the United States.
This article was originally published in NBCNews. with
