Big Data, Great Lakes

A Journalism Workshop Exploring Data Centers in Southeastern Wisconsin

March 15 - 18, 2026
Milwaukee

The United States currently has the largest data center footprint in the world and there are no signs development will slow down. The Great Lakes region is home to nearly 20 percent of U.S. data centers and hundreds more are being planned or under construction. While the tech industry races to keep up with the computing demands of things like artificial intelligence (AI), streaming and cloud storage, local communities struggle to balance environmental and energy concerns with the potential economic boost of what some are calling an “AI gold rush.”

In March 2026, the Institute for Journalism & Natural Resources conducted a workshop that helped journalists get up to speed on this emerging issue. Participants went into the field to meet the people shaping the data center discourse in the Great Lakes. Set in and around Milwaukee, the workshop explored what data center development may mean for states and communities in this water-rich region. Participants spoke with local municipal leaders, tech industry representatives, state regulators, environmental groups and more as they learned about new developments for companies like Meta and Microsoft, construction moratoriums, the increasing demand for energy, growing water concerns and future projections for a “freshwater economy.”

Participants gained sources, build their background knowledge and collected story ideas as they got a first-hand look at the different ways data centers are shaping local communities as well as the way those communities are attempting to regulate and shape data center development.

This workshop was made possible by the support of the Joyce Foundation, Fund for Lake Michigan, the Brookby Foundation and the Brico Fund.