Workers continue construction of one of four main data center buildings at the Project Lighthouse complex in Port Washington, Wisconsin. Thousands of contractors are working at the facilities, generating revenue for local businesses and traffic to the city’s roads.
Sacha Pfeiffer/NPR
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Sacha Pfeiffer/NPR
Just north of Milwaukee, among cornfields, hills, barns and grain silos, there is an impressive sight: a massive data center under construction, covering two and a half million square feet of former farmland and stretching into the horizon.
This emerging hyperscale complex in Port Washington, Wisconsin, has torn up the land and torn this community apart. It’s a local story that’s also playing out nationally, as AI companies rush to build data centers to power their AI models, and people increasingly protest their construction.
NPR visited the site of Port Washington’s future data center, called Project Lighthouse, and spoke to residents leading a crusade against it. We also met with the small town’s mayor, who may be the data center’s biggest advocate.
The massive Port Washington project has sparked angry protests, multiple lawsuits and opponents arrested for civil disobedience. Supporters say data centers will keep America competitive and could bring great wealth to the places where they are built. But many residents feel scared and helpless as they watch this rapid change, including 67-year-old Amanda Mueller.
“There should be a buffer zone around data centers, and it should be at least a mile from a data center,” he told NPR. “There shouldn’t be residents living nearby. There has to be guardrails.”
Port Washington Mayor Ted Neitzke says adequate guardrails have been put in place.
Ted Neitzke, mayor of the city of Port Washington, Wisconsin, believes the data center project will help his community by reducing taxes and generating new revenue.
Sacha Pfeiffer/NPR
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Sacha Pfeiffer/NPR
“Honestly, if you did your due diligence, I don’t understand why a community like ours, which grew [with] an industrial base, would combat the fact that we would need this again,” Neitzke said.
But there are still many questions about Project Lighthouse, which is being built by Vantage Data Centers in partnership with Oracle and OpenAI, questions that not even its strongest proponents are able to answer.
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