by Tom Kertscher / Wisconsin Watch, Wisconsin Watch
July 22, 2026
For six months now, Wisconsin Watch has made a concerted effort to report on data centers. We’re publishing major stories at WisconsinWatch.org and, each Monday, we provide data center news nuggets in our Forward newsletter (subscribe here).
Here’s a month-by-month summary of what we’ve reported.
January: Wisconsin Watch revealed that officials in at least four Wisconsin communities (the number has since grown) signed nondisclosure agreements that hid details of billion-dollar data center proposals from the public.
February: We detailed how a $1 billion data center is being proposed for Grant County in the Driftless Area of southwest Wisconsin.
March: In a sign of the impact of artificial intelligence data centers, we reported that just three Wisconsin companies have done more than $1 billion in business supplying the facilities. We also disclosed more NDAs and other ways local governments have tried to keep data center details secret.
April: We were the first to report on an official estimate that state government will forgo $2 billion in revenue because of a sales tax exemption for data centers that was adopted in 2023.
June: We spent months gathering behind-the-scenes details on what happened to the Driftless Area proposal.
July: We detailed how land sales for the data center under construction in Port Washington turned homeowners and farmers into millionaires and, in some cases, created generation-changing wealth.
More stories are in the works.
If you have suggestions for future data center coverage, please let me know: tkertscher@wisconsinwatch.org.
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