(AFP) – President Joe Biden headed Wednesday to crucial US battleground state Wisconsin to announce a $3.3 billion artificial intelligence datacenter — and draw contrasts with rival Donald Trump whose promised mega-project at the same location fizzled.
Biden is to highlight a major investment by Microsoft in Racine, a city on the shores of Lake Michigan, as part of the president’s plan of “growing the economy from the middle-out and bottom-up,” the White House said.
It will be built right where the Republican tycoon had pledged with great fanfare to build a giant factory for Taiwanese manufacturer Foxconn.
That project, touted as creating 13,000 jobs and which Trump declared would be the “eighth wonder of the world” during the site’s inauguration in 2018, never materialized.
“Now Microsoft will build a new AI datacenter on the same land, powering industries of the future in Wisconsin,” the White House said in a statement, adding that state residents were “left behind” when the Trump-hailed project was abandoned.
Biden, campaigning for reelection as he heads into a likely rematch against his Republican rival, will tout the Microsoft-linked AI datacenter that will create 2,300 union construction jobs, followed by 2,000 permanent jobs.
The White House said the project will “showcase a community at the heart of his commitment to invest in places that have been historically overlooked or failed by the last administration’s policies.”
Racine and Wisconsin lost manufacturing jobs during Trump’s 2017-2021 presidency, but since Biden took office nearly 4,000 jobs have been added in Racine — roughly a third in manufacturing — and 177,000 jobs have been added in Wisconsin, according to White House figures.
The upper Midwestern state, whose economy is based both on farming and industry, is an epicenter of this year’s fierce US election battle.
Wisconsin is among the handful of swing states — including Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania — that hold the key to presidential victory in 2024.
It is no coincidence the Republican Party has chosen to hold its nominating convention this summer in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Biden has already made multiple campaign stops in the state this year. His Democratic Party, meanwhile, will hold its national convention in August in Chicago, Illinois, where Biden is headed for a fundraising visit on Wednesday.
© 2024 AFP
