OpenAI, Oracle Corp. and Vantage Data Centers LLC plan to build a Stargate campus in Wisconsin at a cost of more than $15 billion.
The companies announced the project late Wednesday. At full capacity, the campus will host four data centers with nearly one gigawatt of computing capacity. One gigawatt of electricity is enough to power several hundred thousand homes.
Vantage is a data center builder that was launched in 2010 by Silver Lake, a prominent technology investment firm. Last year, it raised $6.4 billion in funding to support its infrastructure development efforts. As of January 2024, the company had more than 30 operational and planned data centers in its portfolio.
The Stargate campus that Vantage is building with OpenAI and Oracle is called Lighthouse. It will be built in Port Washington, a Milwaukee suburb located on the shores of Lake Michigan.
Vantage says the campus will be water positive, which means it’s expected to restore more freshwater than what it will consume. To achieve that goal, the company plans to use a closed-circuit liquid cooling system designed to minimize water waste. Vantage will also invest in wastewater treatment facilities, water main upgrades and related infrastructure.
The company will build the new infrastructure as part of a $175 million program that also prioritizes power generation. Vantage plans to support the development of renewable energy capacity in Wisconsin across solar, wind and battery storage projects. It says 70% of the electricity will be allocated to Lighthouse while the rest is set to become available to Wisconsin consumers.
“This project will create good jobs, advance zero-emission energy and boost the local economy—all while expanding capacity without raising rates for local consumers,” said Peter Hoeschele, OpenAI’s vice president of industrial compute.
Vantage plans to begin construction “soon” with the goal of completing the campus in 2028. The project will create more than 4,000 construction jobs, over 1,000 long-term positions and thousands of indirect jobs. Vantage estimates that the project will contribute $2.7 billion to the region’s gross domestic project.
Lighthouse is one of two data center campuses that the company is building with OpenAI and Oracle as part of Stargate. The other site, which is located in Texas, is expected to host 10 data centers with more than 1.4 million gigawatts of computing capacity. Vantage plans to invest more than $25 billion in the project.
The two sites will account for about a quarter of the data center capacity that OpenAI plans to build in the U.S. as part of Stargate. The project, which the artificial intelligence provider detailed in January, is expected to cost $500 billion through 2029. Oracle is poised to generate $300 billion in revenue from its partnership with OpenAI.
Image: Vantage Data Centers
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