Yorkville’s village leadership has effectively shut the door on a proposed backup data center that would have supported Microsoft’s growing AI footprint in the region.
The rejected site sat on farmland at Kuiper Farm, about five miles from Microsoft’s massive Mount Pleasant AI data center and close to new land the company picked up in Kenosha, which would have made it a logical resiliency and failover node.
Microsoft clarified it is not currently evaluating any Yorkville locations, signaling that redundancy and expansion will need to land in other, more welcoming municipalities.
This is another example of local opposition and land-use politics shaping where high-density GPU and AI infrastructure can actually be built, even when the power and fiber story looks favorable on paper.
For operators, the message is clear: community sentiment and zoning can be as limiting as power and cooling when planning regional backup and DR capacity.
This piece is worth a look to understand how hyperscale AI builds in the Midwest are running into local resistance and shifting site-selection strategy.
