Microsoft behind controversial data center in Michigan township

Microsoft has identified itself as the mysterious company behind a possible data center in a part of Michigan where locals have objected to such a development.

On Wednesday, Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure team was named in a meeting. letterPosted by Lowell Charter Township overlooking 237 acres adjacent to Interstate 96. The county, with a population of approximately 6,500, is located 20 miles southeast of Grand Rapids.

The letter comes after weeks of speculation about who was collaborating with developer Franklin Partners on the controversial project. Illinois-based Franklin has previously said it was working with a national US-based company to build a data center on the land.

In December, local residents packed into a planning commission meeting where a public hearing on the proposed rezoning plan was on the agenda, leading to the postponement of the event. news outlet MLive It reported that a Grand Rapids business owner appeared wearing a Mr. Peanut costume and held up a sign that read, “This is crazy.”

Some people in the area said the county moved too quickly to rezone the land because of a lack of clarity on issues such as energy requirements to operate the facility. Days after the canceled meeting, local officials said they were temporarily delaying moving forward with the project.

“We are introducing ourselves now because we have observed that the community has asked for more information about the offering, and we believe it is important to be transparent about our intentions moving forward,” Microsoft said in Wednesday’s letter. he said. “We asked the seller to pause the rezoning process earlier this year so we could spend time with the community and share more information about our potential long-term plans before moving forward.”

Microsoft will nearly double the size of its data center portfolio over the next two years, CEO Satya Nadella told analysts in October. He is among a group that includes industry heavyweights. Amazon, Google, Meta, SeerOpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI rush to speed up data centers Nvidia’s Graphics processing units and other infrastructure required to run powerful AI models and workloads.

Tech mega-caps collectively spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year on capital expenditures, raising concerns that they are fueling another industry bubble.

Utility providers in some U.S. markets have said they cannot provide the energy needed for these planned data centers, making site selection even more difficult. Residents living near areas where the proposed facilities are located are pushing back, citing a variety of concerns.

This to use It is one of the important issues. The Michigan county said it had struck a deal with the nearby city of Lowell to provide a way to “increase the facility’s capacity at no additional cost to ratepayers.” Consumers Energy, a utility serving millions of Michiganders he said data centers will not lead to higher electricity prices.

The land in the township’s Covenant Business Park was zoned as an industrial planned unit development and remained vacant due in part to a lack of water and sewer services. Before the project can move forward, the township board will need to approve the zoning change to light industrial.

The county said this development will result in an investment of $500 million to $1 billion over three to five years.

The planning commission will meet again on January 12.

WRISTWATCH: BofA’s Obin: Data centers in space will be ‘front and center’ for investors in next 12-24 months