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By Andrea Shalal
RACINE, Wis. (Reuters) – U. S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday unveiled Microsoft Corp’s plan to build a $3. 3 billion knowledge center in southeastern Wisconsin, in stark contrast to his Republican predecessor, who subsidized an earlier $10 billion allocation at the same site that he slashed.
Biden, on his fourth trip to Wisconsin this year, said Microsoft’s investment would create thousands of jobs in the presidential battleground that his campaign sees as critical to his bid for a second term.
The facility will be built where Biden’s rival for president, Donald Trump, announced a $10 billion investment through Taiwanese electronics maker Foxconn in 2017, which the company later downsized. Trump had called it “the eighth in the world. “
“I’m here to tell you a wonderful story of coming back to America,” Biden told 200 others at Gateway Technical College’s Sturtevant campus in a Midwestern state battered by the decline of the manufacturing sector.
The president said Microsoft’s investment “would be transformative, just here, but around the world. “
“My predecessor made promises that he didn’t keep,” Biden said. Under my leadership, we make promises and deliver on our promises. “
Foxconn announced in 2021 that it would invest $672 million in place of the $10 billion originally planned and planned to create 1,454 new jobs, up from 13,000 as its plans were replaced and tax breaks were reduced amid local skepticism.
Microsoft President Brad Smith said the U. S. company plans to invest $3. 3 billion through the end of 2026 and use artificial intelligence to boost production and staffing.
The White House said the investment would ultimately result in the creation of 2,300 union jobs in the construction sector and about 2,000 permanent jobs. He says about 4,000 jobs have been created in the nearby town of Racine since Biden took office. while under the Trump administration, around 1,000 jobs have been lost in production.
“We will study more than 100,000 people in Wisconsin through the end of the decade so that they have the AI capabilities they need to fill the jobs of tomorrow,” Smith said. He credited Biden’s infrastructure, microchips and climate update law for laying the groundwork. the basis for that investment.
Microsoft will partner with Gateway Technical College to train an additional 1,000 people in data centers and other functions through 2030 and work to train 1,000 business leaders on adopting AI in their operations, the White House added.
SUPPORT FROM BLACK VOTERS
After the Microsoft event, Biden shook hands and joked with about 50 volunteers from Racine’s Black community crusade, urging them to take Trump’s word for it when he threatened to oppose progress made during Biden’s presidency.
Biden is looking to bolster himself among black voters ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election, and national polls show him necessarily tied in a rematch with Trump, a Republican making his third bid for the White House after losing to Biden in 2020.
Biden’s crusade introduced a $14 million advertising crusade, adding classified ads to Black, Latino and Asian voters. On Thursday, he plans a crackdown on what he sees as Trump’s attacks on physical attention.
In Wisconsin, Biden criticized his predecessor for failing to invest in Racine County. “Foxconn turned out to be just that: a scam,” he said.
Representatives of Trump’s crusade may not be available for comment.
Foxconn said in a statement that employment at its Wisconsin operations has increased 42% since 2020 and has become the largest taxpayer in the surrounding county in recent years. “We are proud of the more than 1,000 men and women who work at Foxconn Wisconsin. ,” it reads.
(Reporting via Andrea Shalal; additional reporting by Nandita Bose, Susan Heavey and Katharine Jackson; editing by Heather Timmons, Cynthia Osterman and Rosalba O’Brien)