Wisconsin data centers: what the public record shows.

These notes name selected records, say which kinds of public evidence were checked and show what remains missing. They do not add anything to the published counts.

• Economic development incentives — Checked
  • WEDC certification letters, application files and any award amounts were not located.
  • WEDC's wider press archive was not swept for other data center announcements because the current review did not include a broad discovery sweep.

  Selected records

  • Qualified Data Center Exemption (guidance 100318) · Wisconsin Department of Revenue
  • Data Center Sales and Use Tax Exemption program page · Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation
  • Meta, state and local officials announce $1 billion data center investment in Beaver Dam project · Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation
• Utility commission and large-load records — Partly checked
  • Every apps.psc.wi.gov docket page could not be retrieved during review, so no filings, electric service agreements, load forecasts or MW figures were read.
  • Docket 6680-TE-115 and the ATC Ozaukee County interconnection docket were not read.
  • Alliant and other utility large-load tariff filings could not be searched in the current review.

  Selected records

  • PSC Overhauls We Energies' Data Center Tariff, Makes Improvements to Protect Existing Customers · Public Service Commission of Wisconsin
• Environmental and construction permits — Partly checked
  • No statewide DNR air permit search was run for other data center generator permits (Microsoft Mount Pleasant, Meta Beaver Dam, colocation sites); the permit search portal was not queried because the current review did not include a broad discovery sweep and no direct query URL was known.
  • Individual permit PDFs, the environmental analysis summary and the WEPA compliance determination were not downloaded.
  • No generator megawatt total appears in the DNR pages read, so no generation capacity is recorded.

  Selected records

  • Port Washington Data Center Proposal — Environmental Impact Analysis · Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
  • Air Management Permit Tracking — facility 38402 · Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
• Local planning, assessor and map records — Partly checked
  • Port Washington and Kenosha municipal sites could not be retrieved during review and Beaver Dam's document centre refused connections, so no minutes, ordinances or staff reports were read for those cities.
  • No assessor or GIS parcel records were queried for any Wisconsin site; no parcel IDs were captured.
  • Caledonia's homepage contained no data center material and no case file was located.

  Selected records

  • QTS Data Centers — Potential Data Center Development (project page and timeline) · Village of DeForest
  • Village of Caledonia website · Village of Caledonia
• Tax abatements and development agreements — Partly checked
  • No TID project plan, development agreement or PILOT document was read for Beaver Dam, Port Washington, Mount Pleasant, Kenosha or the Town of Beloit.
  • Wisconsin Watch articles on community nondisclosure agreements and the Port Washington TIF referendum could not be retrieved during review, so the four communities that signed secrecy deals were not identified.
  • Searches for the Port Washington TID and development agreement could not be run in the current review.

  Selected records

  • Data Center Information fact sheet (DocumentCenter View 2458) · City of Beaver Dam
• Operator disclosures — Partly checked
  • The EdgeConneX Madison page could not be retrieved during review.
  • Amazon Web Services, Google, Oracle and Apple location pages were not checked for Wisconsin sites.
  • Colocation operators absent from Compute Atlas were not enumerated.

  Selected records

  • Hello, Beaver Dam! · Meta
  • OpenAI, Oracle and Vantage Data Centers Announce Stargate Data Center Site in Wisconsin · Vantage Data Centers
  • Microsoft completes construction on first datacenter facility in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin · Microsoft
• Open datasets and directories — Checked
  • Directory listings cited by Compute Atlas (Baxtel, datacenterHawk, datacentermap) were not yet reviewed directly.
  • No other licensed dataset was consulted for Wisconsin.

  Selected records

  • Compute Atlas facilities dataset — Wisconsin extract · Compute Atlas
• Closures, withdrawals and former names — Partly checked
  • No municipal withdrawal letter, denial or rescission record was read for any of these projects.
  • WTMJ's year-end review (unavailable during review) and three DataCenterDynamics articles (unavailable during review) were not read.
  • Wisconsin Watch follow-ups on Cassville and Cloverleaf Carlton could not be retrieved during review.

  Selected records

  • Microsoft scraps plans for Caledonia data center site, working to find an alternate location · Wisconsin Public Radio
  • Microsoft pulls plug on plans for 244-acre data center in Caledonia after community pushback · TMJ4
  • Menomonie mayor puts $1.6B data center proposal on hold · Wisconsin Public Radio
• News and other discovery — Partly checked
  • No general news sweep was possible after the current review did not include a broad discovery sweep; discovery after that point followed Compute Atlas source URLs and links inside retrieved pages only.

  Selected records

  • Microsoft Plans Kenosha, Wisconsin, Data Center Operations · Area Development
  • Another billion-dollar Wisconsin data center is eyed for Cassville in Grant County · PBS Wisconsin (Wisconsin Watch)