Wisconsin Won't Write the AI Put

Oracle wants to build four datacenters in Wisconsin, estimated to cost $15 billion, as part of its broader compute infrastructure deal with OpenAI. But before Oracle commits to the development, they need to ensure the energy infrastructure needed for the massive data center will be built. Wisconsin considers these, “Bespoke Resources,” aka “power plants we built for a customer.” So We Energies builds the energy infrastructure, Oracle promises to buy the electricity for a long enough period of time that they can repay them and We Energies recoups the cost of building the infrastructure. If there continues to be demand for this Oracle data center, then Oracle can pay the bills on time and everything is great. If demand or technology changes, Oracle abandons the project, or some other unforeseen circumstance happens, We Energies (and Wisconsin) is left holding the bag for this now unnecessary energy infrastructure. To prevent this, the Wisconsin Public Service Commission requires large…