A major investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure is coming to the upper Midwest. OpenAI, Oracle and Vantage Data Centers have unveiled plans for a $15 billion, nearly one-gigawatt data center campus in Port Washington, Wisconsin — a project that underscores the explosive growth of AI-driven construction across the U.S.
According to the Oct. 22 announcement, the four-building facility will bring extensive upgrades to local utilities. That includes $175 million dedicated to water and power systems, as well as expanded wastewater and sewer capacity to support the high energy and cooling demands of modern data centers.
The Wisconsin project marks another big leap in the Stargate partnership, a $500 billion initiative to build 10 gigawatts of AI compute infrastructure nationwide. Launched in January, the program has rapidly scaled, with builds already underway in Texas, New Mexico and Ohio. Its development pipeline is now approaching 7 gigawatts of AI-ready capacity.
The Port Washington facility is also expected to bolster construction activity at a time when other commercial sectors are slowing. Industry data shows that firms working in data center construction are holding backlogs averaging 12 months, compared with the broader industry’s 8.5-month average — demonstrating how AI demand continues to reshape construction priorities.
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“As demand for data centers expands beyond traditional hubs, the upper Midwest has become a critical and strategic market,” said Dana Adams, president of North America at Vantage Data Centers, in the release. “Our investment in Wisconsin reflects the area’s strong foundation for digital growth to support sustainable AI innovation at scale.”
Work on the campus will begin soon, with full completion expected in 2028. When operational, it will help fuel the compute power required for large-scale AI model training, cloud services and next-generation machine learning development.
Local officials and business groups are already positioning the project as a major economic catalyst — one that could drive job creation, additional tech investment and higher demand for infrastructure improvements throughout the region.
Originally reported by Sebastian Obando in Construction Dive.
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