Why rural Wisconsin is blocking the AI data center boom: 'Horses are skittish'

The village of Caledonia, Wisconsin is opposing Microsoft's plan to rezone 244 acres of agricultural land for a data center. Residents are worried about noise, air quality, electricity bills, and lack of local jobs. After facing significant public opposition, Microsoft walked away from the Caledonia project and instead decided to expand an existing AI data center 20 miles south in the village of Mount Pleasant. The two villages have different dynamics - while Mount Pleasant previously cleared land and built infrastructure for a failed Foxconn project, Caledonia is more rural and skeptical of subsidizing a tech giant's data center operations.