Michigan: AI data center project proposed in Michigan

An unnamed company is reportedly looking at building an ‘AI data center’ on 280 acres on Yore Avenue near Lake Michigan College. Further details are unavailable at this time. Benton Charter Township is a charter township in Berrien County, Michigan, located on the east side of Lake Michigan.

"It's unprecedented what this could bring to the area,” Chokwe Pitchford, a Berrien County Commissioner who serves on the National Association of Counties Artificial Intelligence Committee, told ABC.

“We have access to a lot of electricity with the Cook Plant and soon-to-be Palisades coming back online. Water for cooling and there's a lot of space. So these are pretty large projects. So you put that all together, and makes for a pretty attractive site for this industry so I am hoping it will be one of many,” added Michigan State Representative Joey Andrews.

In 2022, Michigan Democratic Representative Yousef Rabhi tried to introduce two bills that would have eliminated sales and use tax exemptions for data centers. He previously called data center tax exemption bills “corporate cronyism at its finest.”