STURTEVANT, Wis. (CN) — At a campaign event at a southeastern Wisconsin technical college on Wednesday, President Joe Biden celebrated the announcement of tech giant Microsoft’s plans to invest billions of dollars in data and artificial intelligence infrastructure in the region.
Microsoft will invest $3.3 billion between now and the end of 2026 to expand data cloud and AI capacity at the company’s datacenter campus in nearby Mount Pleasant, according to the plans announced by Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers in November and confirmed in detail on Wednesday.
The investment will bring around 2,000 union construction jobs to the area by the end of the year, according to a press release from Evers’ office and speakers on Wednesday, which included Evers himself, city of Racine Mayor Cory Mason and Microsoft's president and vice chair, Brad Smith.
Many more long-term employment opportunities will follow over the next several years as Microsoft bolsters its partnership with the state for advancement in AI and manufacturing, according to the plan.
The partnership also includes TitleTown Tech, a company based in Green Bay; the Green Bay Packers football team; and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where Microsoft will establish an AI innovation lab.
In remarks before the president took the stage, Smith noted that Microsoft’s $3.3 billion investment will create and sustain union jobs not only in the region but across Wisconsin by connecting supply chains for steel and other materials.
During his 15-minute speech, Biden called Racine “a great comeback story in America.” The region was once a booming manufacturing center through the 1960s, but the president blamed trickle-down economics, shipping American jobs overseas and slashed public investment in education and innovations for hollowing out the middle class and hurting the area.
Biden said a pipeline to train workers for the jobs the Microsoft investment will create would start at Gateway Technical College, where Wednesday’s event took place, and at local high schools.
The president focused on organized labor’s role in plans for AI expansion in the region and the state, emphasizing the importance of highly-skilled, high-paying jobs that do not require a four-year college degree or moving away from home, and an executive order he signed last October on AI security which he said “makes sure workers have a seat at the table to determine how these technologies are developed and used.”
Biden also celebrated how Microsoft’s investment indicates “private sector optimism” about his agenda, which includes shots in the arm for jobs and manufacturing caused by the CHIPS Act, the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law passed during his administration, he said.
The president also took some shots at his predecessor, Donald Trump, including making a reference to a 2017 deal struck between Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled government and Taiwanese tech giant Foxconn in which the latter promised to invest $10 billion in Wisconsin and hire up to 13,000 workers for a massive plant in Mount Pleasant to manufacture screens for televisions and other devices.
Trump called the planned facility “the eighth wonder of the world” at the time, but the arrangement has not lived up to its promises. Only a small fraction of the promised jobs and investments have materialized as part of a deal that has been significantly downsized since 2017.
Biden scoffed at the fizzled Foxconn deal when referencing a now-famous photo op of Trump, then-Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and Foxconn officials breaking ground with golden shovels at the planned site of Foxconn’s campus.
“Are you kidding me? Look what happened. They dug a hole with those golden shovels and they fell into it,” Biden said. “Foxconn turned out to be just that: a con. Go figure.”
The president’s campaign stop in the Racine County town marks his fourth visit to Wisconsin this year, including an event in March at a Boys & Girls Club in Milwaukee to tout green infrastructure projects in historically disadvantaged communities.
Biden’s stop in the Badger State comes one week after Trump held a rally in Waukesha during a break from his New York criminal trial alleging hush-money payments to cover up an affair with porn star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign.
Much of the current polling suggests a dead heat between Biden and Trump, including figures released by Morning Consult on May 5. Many other polls show Trump leading Biden, however, including a survey released by Emerson College on April 30 comprising results from seven key swing states, Wisconsin included.
Trump continues to falsely claim he won Wisconsin in 2020, but Biden won the state by just over 20,000 votes, a result that has been upheld, in part, by a recount Trump demanded, a nonpartisan audit and multiple lawsuits.
Wisconsin — a narrowly divided, politically purple battleground where four of the last six presidential elections have been decided by less than a percentage point — is considered one of the keys to victory by both Biden and Trump. In 2016, Trump was the first Republican to win the state since Ronald Reagan in 1984; Biden flipped the state back to blue in 2020.
Biden is holding a campaign event in Racine County before heading to Chicago for another reception Wednesday afternoon.
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