(RepublicanNews.org) – Pres. Biden has announced the creation of a $3.3 billion Microsoft artificial intelligence center in Wisconsin. The Microsoft facility will be built at the same Racine County site that was intended to house a $10 billion Foxconn electronics development under Donald Trump’s presidency. In 2017, Trump announced the massive project by the Taiwanese firm that ultimately failed to come to fruition. Biden was pleased to be able to point to this as a failure of Trump’s and claimed that it represented a broken promise.
Wisconsin is a key state in the electoral battleground, having been won over by Biden in 2020 by a tiny margin of less than one percentage point. As such, he is keen to present his administration as having helped the state prosper. According to the White House, Wisconsin’s economy lost 6,000 jobs during Trump’s administration, while it has since gained 177,000 under Biden. It is not clear how much of this growth can be attributed to the current president’s policies, and how much is part of jobs being created as businesses were able to re-open and function more normally as lockdown policies have eased.
The new investment by Microsoft is set to create 2,000 full-time positions as well as 2,300 union construction jobs. According to the White House National Economic Council’s Jon Donenberg, the Microsoft campus will help to create prosperity in the wider area as it will allow small businesses to find customers amongst the employees. As part of its Wisconsin plans, Microsoft also aims to build an AI co-innovation lab with a focus on manufacturing, which would be the first of its kind in the United States. This lab will be based at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and has ambitious plans to work with 270 businesses in the state by 2030.
Wisconsin voters are yet to be swayed by Pres. Biden’s promises for their state. A recent poll found that Wisconsinites trust Trump over Biden in economic matters, with a split of 52% to 34%.
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