RE:Microsoft slams the brakes on $3.3 billion data center The only clue we have as to why Microsoft might be reconsidering its design for a series of AI datacenters in Mount Pleasant is a company blog post from late last year discussing a new form of closed-loop water cooling that would decrease its water footprint, which has been skyrocketing in recent years thanks to large-scale deployment of AI.
Microsoft is already ditching evaporative cooling in some datacenters to address concerns over water consumption, and hopes its closed-loop cooling can further cut its footprint.
"The shift to the next generation datacenters is expected to help reduce our water usage effectiveness to near zero for each datacenter employing zero-water evaporation," Microsoft said in its December 9 post. "New projects in Phoenix, Arizona, and Mt. Pleasant, Wisconsin, will pilot zero-water evaporated designs in 2026."
Whether the Wisconsin delays are tied to the closed-loop design, or some other element of datacenter design, is unknown. Microsoft didn't answer questions to that end.