… Be here to announce that between now and the end of 2026, we will invest and spend $3.3 billion right here. Working with all of you, we are going to build something special with the help of some very special people. More than 2000 people who have union jobs, the electricians, the plumbers, yes. And we are going to be building among the world’s most advanced AI and cloud data centers that you will see anywhere, and it’s not just the jobs that we’re creating here. We are creating manufacturing jobs across the state of Wisconsin. As we get steel from near Wausau, as we get chillers from La Crosse, as we get generators from near Madison, this is literally creating jobs across the state of Wisconsin. As some of you know, I love this project for one very particular reason, among others. From the age of 9 to 14, I literally lived just three miles from here. Our family dog came from a farm that’s now part of the land on which we are building this data center.
(01:45)
But I want you to know this isn’t just about building a building and it’s not just about the manufacturing jobs of today; more than anything, this project is about using the power of AI to fuel the future of manufacturing companies, jobs, and skills across the state of Wisconsin and around the country. That is what we are building together. On the one hand, it actually helps to have a big company, like Microsoft that can build a strong foundation that can support every small business and nonprofit everywhere, but more than that, as you all know, it takes a community. One thing that I’ve always felt is so important about the work we are doing here is to under-promise, over-deliver, and work with the community. That’s what I learned growing up here. It’s the way to do business here. That is what we’re doing with all of you, and the partnerships that have come together are truly, in my view, inspiring. It’s our work with technical college to create a data center economy that will train more than 1000 people to fill the operational jobs that this new facility will require.
(03:10)
It’s the partnership with the United Way of Racine County, with the state of Wisconsin, and with other partners. We will train more than 100,000 people in Wisconsin by the end of the decade. So they have the AI skills to fill the jobs of tomorrow. One of the most exciting things that I think we’re launching today is a new initiative, the first of its kind of the United States, a manufacturing-focused AI co-innovation lab. It will be at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee at the Connected Systems Institute. We, literally, will have the opportunity to help hundreds of companies, hundreds of manufacturing companies, come in so they can design new AI-based systems that will ensure that Wisconsin manufacturing remains at the forefront of global competitiveness. The partnerships that we’re building on, this is building not only on great work that’s been going on in Milwaukee at the Connected Systems Institute. This builds on this long-standing partnership that we’ve had at Green Bay at Title Town Tech, co-founded in 2019 by Microsoft and the Green Bay Packers.
(04:45)
And now we are connecting Title Town Tech with UW-Milwaukee, and oh my gosh, thank you to Mark Murphy and Ed Policy, as you all know, there are two things that unite the people of Wisconsin: God and the Green Bay Packers. We could do none of this without the local labor leaders that are involved, the leaders of the IBEW, the leaders of the Plumbers and Steamfitters Union, and we’re so pleased, in my view, to be joined today by Liz Shuler, the National President of the AFL-CIO. I have learned so much from Liz about how a great technology company and a great set of labor organizations can forge the kind of partnership that will create the jobs and opportunity for the people, not just of today, but for the future. Then, I just want to say it starts at the local level. Mount Pleasant, what an extraordinary place. When I look at Dave DeGroot, the village president, when I see the county executive for Racine, for the mayor of Racine, governor Evers, from his first meeting with me, to do the things that needed to be done to make this happen.
(06:16)
But I want you to know something else because I think it’s especially fitting on a day like today. Everything that we are doing here in Racine County, Wisconsin is also benefiting directly from the work of this White House and this president over the last four years. Every day you see the news of the day, but what really matters is the work over a number of years. In 2021, this president sat down across the aisle and persuaded our Congress to pass a bipartisan infrastructure law, a bipartisan infrastructure law that is investing in the roads and bridges that are needed to bring the steel to this plant that have injected more than $1 billion into a cause in which we’ve long believed bringing broadband connectivity to everyone in the state of Wisconsin. That’s a part of this. Then, again, in 2022, it took people coming together in Washington to pass the Chips and Science Act, because believe me, a data center without chips doesn’t do very much for anybody.
(07:35)
And again, in 2022, because of the Inflation Reduction Act, it became possible to aim higher, to achieve the climate and energy goals that also are indispensable to what we need to do as a company and all of us need to do as a community right here. Then, last year, in 2023, this White House, this administration, and this president really led the tech sector in the country and even the world to recognize how much AI was changing the world, but that we need to ensure that it’s safe, that it’s secure, that it’s used responsibly, and they brought people together so we could move fast to do precisely that. Finally, every day since the first day of the inauguration in 2021, I just have to say, as someone who spends part of every single day working on and worrying about the cybersecurity protection of our customers in this nation, no administration has done as much as this administration to protect the cybersecurity of our communities and our country as a whole.
(08:55)
It takes all kinds of people that find a way to get things done. As I introduce the person who will introduce the president, the person who is doing the recruiting to bring in the people that will build the building, that will house the technology, that will serve the world, Nick Fick, who comes from the IBEW right here in Racine. Let me leave you with one final thought. I hope that with everything else that’s going on in the world today, people here in Wisconsin and people across the country will just take a moment to remember this. This day shows something important. It shows that America remains what it has always been. We are a country where people come together, where people work together, where they address hard challenges and we get great things done. We won’t let you down. Please welcome Nick Fick.
Nick Fick (10:08):
Thank you. Wow, that’s going to be a tough act to follow there. It’s good to see all you friendly faces in the crowd today. Good morning. My name is Nick Fick. I’m a proud 23-year member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 430 in Racine Wisconsin. Thank you. I was born and raised here, but a few years after I completed my apprenticeship, the contractor I was working for had to explore all options due to lack of work in the area. I traveled the country for them, then came back home to start a family. In 2017, good news about local economic development was hard to come by. When plans were announced for a new high-tech manufacturing complex in Racine, it could not have come at a better time. Unfortunately, we all know what happened next after all that hype and all that hope, the promises made by Donald Trump failed to come true in Racine County, but now our luck has changed.
(11:20)
Microsoft plans to spend billions of dollars to build data centers on the same property Foxconn has abandoned. Now Local 430 members are installing temporary power and lighting, along with the preliminary underground work needed, and this is just the start. They are calling this site Microsoft’s Crown Jewel, the biggest footprint of any Microsoft facility in the world. That means long-term work for hundreds of skilled professional IBEW electricians for 10 to 15 years. Now I have the good fortune to have the job here at home, organizing electricians into the IBEW. Thank you. Thanks to Joe Biden, advanced manufacturing jobs are coming back to America and back to our hometown. We are grateful to Microsoft for investing in America and here in Mount Pleasant and also to President Biden who promised to bring infrastructure back to bring manufacturing back, to bring good paying union jobs back. Ladies and gentlemen, Joe Biden keeps his promises. It is an honor for me to introduce to you the President of the United States of America, Joe Biden.
Joe Biden (13:01):
Hello, hello, hello. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Hello, Wisconsin. Nick, thanks for that introduction. Look, before I get started, I want to set the record straight. Please sit down. I went to a Catholic high school in Delaware, taught by the Norbertine priests from St. Norbert’s College, a little team called Green Bay. Now. Here’s the deal. We were the only high school in Delaware, but overwhelmingly rooted for Green Bay. Not a joke. I’ll tell you why. Every single Sunday, not only did they have great teams at the time, still do, but not only that, my theology professor at the Catholic school I went to was a guy named Riley, last name, and he had been drafted by the Green Bay Packers, and he decided to become a priest before that so he didn’t go. But every single solitary Monday at Green Bay one, we got the last period of the day off. Now, we Catholics call that indirect bribery, but it worked.
(14:40)
It is always great to be with one of the best governors in America, Tony Evers. I think of Tony, I mean it, I think of one word, integrity. You’re a man of absolute integrity. What I’m really doing, I’m really auditioning for a job with a little company that’s going to build something out here. Thank you for the comments you made about what we’re doing together. Well look, while she couldn’t be here, I want to thank one of the best US senators in the United States of American, and a good friend of mine, Tammy Baldwin. You also got a great mayor in Racine, Cory Mason, Brad Smith, president of Microsoft. Thank you for your partnership, for showing how we can get things done and big things done in America, and thank you for your friendship. I really mean it. Liz Shuler, president of [inaudible 00:15:57], thank you for all you do to benefit the American Union movement. I got called the most pro-union president American history.
(16:04)
I make no apologies for it. I’m serious. Middle class build America, but unions built the middle class. I’ve been saying that for a long time. Folks, I’m here to talk about a great comeback story in America, and I’m sure you remember. Racine was once a manufacturing boom town, all the way through the 1960s. Power companies invented a manufacturing Windex, portable vacuum cleaners and so much more, and powered by middle class jobs. Then, came trickle-down economics, cut taxes for the very wealthy and the biggest corporations again in the 60s. We shipped American jobs overseas, because labor was cheaper. We slashed public investment in education and innovation, and the result, we hollowed out the middle class. My predecessor and his administration doubled down on that failed trickle-down economics, along with the trial of broken promises. Look, my dad used to have an expression. He said, “Joe,” John, I mean this sincerely. My dad was a well-read man, never got to go to college, but he was a good man all across the board.
(17:24)
He’d say, “Joey, remember. A job’s a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your integrity, it’s about your dignity. It’s about being treated with respect. It’s about being to look at your kid in the eye and say, ‘Honey, everything’s going to be okay.'” In fact, six years ago when my predecessor came to Racine with the promise of “reclaiming our country’s proud manufacturing legacy,” we had an infrastructure every day, every week for four years, didn’t build a damn thing. His administration promised a $10 billion investment by Foxconn to build new manufacturing complex, create 13,000 new jobs. In fact, he came here with your senator, Ron Johnson, literally holding a golden shovel, promising to build the eighth wonder of the world. Are you kidding me? Look what happened. They dug a hole with those golden shovels, and then they fell into it. Look, they didn’t shovel other dirt. They did shovel some dirt. 100 homes were bulldozed.
(18:38)
They wasted hundreds of millions of dollars, your state and local tax dollars, to promise a project that never happen. Foxconn turned out to be just that, a con. Go figure. In just four years, under his administration, instead of creating 13,000 jobs in Racine, my predecessor and 1000 manufacturing jobs, rather than creating 1000 manufacturing jobs, left Racine. 83,500 total jobs left Wisconsin during my predecessor’s term, but that’s not on my watch. We’re determined to turn it around. Thus far, since we’ve come to office, and with the governor’s overwhelming leadership, we’ve created over 178,000 jobs in Wisconsin, and we’re going to create more here in Racine and big time. Some of my friends in the far right have criticized my investing in American agenda, which includes my bipartisan infrastructure law, the Chips and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. A lot of businesses support it as a key to economic growth that we’re seeing now. Remember here, you’re going to have a recession next week, recession next week, no soft landing.
(20:00)
Well, in fact, I’ve asked business leaders, like Brad, a simple question, “When the United States decides to invest considerable resources in the new industry that we need to build, does that encourage or discourage them engaging?” The answer overwhelming is it encourages business investment and that’s what we’re seeing now with our administration. My investing in America agenda is fueling historic boom, and rebuilding our roads and bridges, developing and deploying clean energy, revitalizing American manufacturing and so much more. So far, we’ve created $866 billion in private sector investment nationwide, almost a trillion dollars. Historic amounts in such a short time. Now it’s literally creating of thousands of jobs, building new semiconductor factories, electric vehicles and battery factories and so much more here, all here in America today. It’s another example of the private sector optimism. Microsoft, as the president already pointed out, is investing $3.3 billion to build a new data center here in Racine that’s going to help operate one of the most powerful artificial intelligence systems in the world.
(21:12)
I’ve gone around the world, literally, not figuratively, meeting with the leading architects of AI. It’s going to result in 2,300 union construction jobs, just to build a new facility and 2000 permanent workers to work in the data centers. In addition, we’re also providing a pipeline to train for these new jobs, a pipeline that starts right here at this very spot. Microsoft is partnering with Gateway Technical Community College right here to train and certify 200 students a year to fill high-demand, good-paying jobs, and data and IT at Microsoft’s new AI day center here in Racine, but that’s not all. In addition, Microsoft is continuing to pipeline, going to high schools and nearby Mount Pleasant to train high school students for jobs of the future. As the boss pointed out, it’s going to create 100,000 jobs over time. It’s all part of Microsoft’s broad plan to build artificial intelligence ecosystem right here in Racine, and it’s going to be transformative, not just here but worldwide.
(22:27)
It’s not only significant investment in infrastructure Racine, but for the people of Racine. It means folks are getting trained. Folks are getting trained in new high-paying, high-skilled jobs that don’t require a four-year college degree and don’t require you to leave home. Where I come from, that really matters. I know what it’s like when your parents have to move the family in search of work because of no jobs, what it does to the family’s dignity. My wife, Jill, who teaches full-time at a community college cares a lot about this as well. Last year she announced our first five workforce hub sites to build a pipeline of workers in industries that are creating new hometowns in Phoenix, Baltimore, Columbus, Ohio, Augusta, Georgia, pulling everything from semiconductors to electric vehicles. Last month I announced four new hubs to continue to train workers for the jobs of the future, one of which is in Milwaukee that trains workers to help replace every poisonous lead pipe in America and a decade of funded by the infrastructure law.
(23:43)
By the way, Buy America has been the law of the land since the 30s, but it’s been ignored by most administration. Past administration, including my predecessors, have failed to buy America. Not anymore. Here’s how it works. When the Congress sends something to the president to bill something, whether it’s a road, a highway, deck of an aircraft carrier, whatever it is, that president’s being backed from law that’s passed in the 30s. It’s supposed to hire American workers to build it and use American products. Well, on my watch and Tammy’s leadership, federal projects like the Blatnik Bridge, here in Wisconsin, it’s going to cost $1 billion, but it’s going to be all-American made, all-American products, and all-American workers, and it’s going to create 10,000 new jobs, 10,000. In addition, the roads, highways, and so much more would be made with American products built by American workers, creating good-paying American jobs. What’s happening in Racine is really important for another reason. We’ll see more technical community colleges, technical changes needed in the next 10 years than we saw in the last 50.
(24:59)
AI is already driving that change in every part of American life, from how we teach and learn, to how we solve the biggest challenges, from curing cancer to climate change. America is a global leader in AI, and American companies lead the world in AI innovation and a lot of what we’re going to see here in Racine. Because of our initiatives, American workers will power that innovation here in America. But look, to get the full benefit of all this safeguards, we need safeguards. That’s why as the president pointed out, I signed the Landmark Executive order on which the most significant action any government has taken anywhere in the world, has ever taken for AI safety, security, and trust. This order helps make sure workers have a seat at the table in determining how these technologies are developed and used. For real, and we’ll support workers in every industry by defending the right to a fair wage to organize as these technologies emerge across the board, and they’re going to happen.
(26:09)
Folks, during the previous administration, my predecessor made promises, which he broke more than kept, left a lot of people behind in communities like Racine. On my watch, we make promises and we keep promises. We leave no one behind. Since I took all of us, we’ve added nearly 4,000 jobs in Racine. As I said earlier, we’ve added 178,000 in the state of Wisconsin. The unemployment rate has hit a record in Racine. Racine has seen some of the strongest new business growth in all of Wisconsin, and it’s only just beginning. We’re seeing a great American comeback story all across Wisconsin and, quite frankly, the entire country. The bottom line is we’re doing what’s always worked in this country, giving people a fair shot, leaving nobody behind and grow the economy in the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down. When that happens, everybody does well. Everybody does well.
(27:18)
Let me close with this. When folks see a new factory being built here in Wisconsin, people going to work, making a really good wage in their hometowns, I hope they feel the pride that I feel, pride in their hometowns making a comeback, pride in knowing we can get big things done in America still. And folks, I’ve never been more optimistic, and I’ve only been around a couple of years. I know I don’t look it, but I’m a 40-plus-2 type. Well, anyways. But I swear to God, I’ve never been more optimistic about our future. We just have remember who [inaudible 00:27:55] we are. We’re the United States of America. There’s nothing beyond our capacity when we work together. Nothing. I mean that. Nothing. The rest of the world looks to us, so keep it going. God bless you all, and may God protect our troops. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Don’t jump.