OpenAI, Oracle and Vantage Data Centers, a global provider of hyperscale data center campuses, announced Oct. 22, 2025, plans to develop a data center campus outside Milwaukee in Port Washington, Wis. The new campus is part of OpenAI and Oracle's previously announced partnership to invest up to 4.5 gigawatts of additional Stargate capacity and is the Midwest site that was recently announced as part of OpenAI's Stargate expansion.
The campus will feature four data centers providing close to a gigawatt of AI capacity. Construction will begin soon and is scheduled for completion in 2028. The project expects to create more than 4,000 skilled construction jobs, most of which will be union jobs. Once complete, Vantage and Oracle will create more than 1,000 long-term jobs and thousands more indirect jobs.
The campus, named Lighthouse, is designed to preserve local resources, support new clean energy resources and advance environmental stewardship, including:
• 100 percent matched zero-emission energy: Vantage is enabling the development of new zero-emission energy capacity in Wisconsin, including solar, wind and battery storage. Seventy percent of the energy capacity will be allocated to the Lighthouse campus while 30 percent will be made available to all Wisconsin consumers. The remaining energy consumed by the campus will be matched with renewable energy purchases annually.
• Water positive: The campus will leverage a closed-loop liquid cooling system that uses minimal water and drives significant energy savings. To minimize its impact on water resources, Vantage is investing in local water restoration projects to achieve water positivity, restoring more water to freshwater sources than the campus consumes.
• Biodiversity net gain: Vantage is developing 500 of 672 total acres for the four data centers, preserving and enhancing the surrounding natural spaces. This includes planting more than 2,000 native trees and other native landscaping to achieve a net gain in biodiversity, as well as protecting and enhancing existing wetlands and creating an 8-ft. planted berm with native species for natural sound mitigation.
• LEED certification: Vantage is pursuing LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for the Lighthouse campus, underscoring the company's global commitment to sustainable building practices.
The campus will deliver immediate and significant long-term economic benefits to Port Washington residents and surrounding communities, including:
• Job creation: More than 4,000 majority-union skilled construction jobs will be created; once complete, Vantage and Oracle are expected to create more than 1,000 long-term jobs and thousands more indirect jobs — many of which will be women-owned, minority-owned and veteran-owned businesses.
• Gross Domestic Product contribution: An estimated $2.7 billion will be contributed to the regional gross domestic product (GDP).
• Infrastructure upgrades: Vantage is investing a minimum of $175 million to make critical regional infrastructure upgrades, including expanded capacity for water and wastewater treatment facilities, upgraded water mains and sewer lines, a new water tower and power infrastructure that will not only benefit the Lighthouse campus but also the needs of Port Washington.
• Investment shields customers from electricity price increases: Vantage is underwriting 100 percent of the power infrastructure investment with a dedicated electricity rate from WEC Energy Group utility We Energies. This proposed rate is designed to protect other customers from any price increases from the new investments to serve Lighthouse.
• This campus, combined with other Stargate campuses in collaboration with Oracle, can deliver over 4.5 gigawatts of IT capacity.
Together with Frontier, a Texas campus in Shackelford County, Vantage is investing more than $40 billion in critical digital infrastructure, underscoring the company's accelerating momentum to deliver high-density, next-generation digital infrastructure at unprecedented scale and speed for today's most advanced global tech leaders.
For more information, visit vantage-dc.com.
