THU AM News: Biden touts $3.3 billion Microsoft AI project in Racine County during WI visit; Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry announces acquisition

May 9, 2024

— President Joe Biden touted Microsoft’s plans for a $3.3 billion new artificial intelligence datacenter in Racine County while slamming his predecessor over Foxconn.

Biden’s speech yesterday touted the new project and his policies while also trolling Donald Trump over Foxconn. He mocked his GOP opponent for predicting the Foxconn project, which has produced a fraction of what the company had once promised, would become the eighth wonder of the world.

He noted Trump and other GOP officials attended a groundbreaking ceremony in summer 2018 with golden shovels.

“Are you kidding me?” Biden mocked. “Look what happened. They dug a hole with those golden shovels, and then they fell into it.”

Foxconn originally promised a $10 billion plant that would employ 13,000 people and produce cutting-edge flat screens. But the company began scaling back its plans not long after the announcement and signed a revised deal with Dem Gov. Tony Evers in 2021 that called for Foxconn to invest $672 million by the end of 2025 and create 1,451 jobs.

Biden called the project a “con” that wasted millions in state and local taxes as officials prepared for a project that didn’t materialize.

The president said Wisconsin lost 83,500 jobs under Trump, but has gained 178,000 since he took office, including 4,000 in Racine County. Biden called it part of a “great American comeback story.” Without mentioning him by name, Biden said his predecessor broke more promises than he kept and left a lot of people behind.

“On my watch, we make promises, and we keep promises, and we leave no one behind,” Biden said.

Biden’s stop in Racine County was the 11th of his presidency and the fourth this year. It comes one week after Trump was in Waukesha County. Four years ago, Biden lost Racine County to Trump by 3.6 percentage points, a slight improvement over the 4.1-point win Trump posted over Hillary Clinton here in 2016.

The White House said the project is expected to create 2,300 union construction jobs and 2,000 permanent jobs over time. The work also includes partnerships between Microsoft and Gateway Technical College, as well as TitletownTech and the Green Bay Packers to establish a manufacturing-focused AI co-innovation lab at UW-Milwaukee.

Ahead of Biden’s visit, Republicans on a media call accused Biden of “hijacking” the Microsoft announcement to distract from his failed policies.

U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Janesville, touted the news as a win for the area but argued Biden is taking credit for private sector work that began more than 10 years ago.

“Microsoft’s announcement of private sector jobs in Racine is good for workers, and it’s all the more important when workers and families find themselves falling further and further behind due to the reckless inflation brought on to us by the Biden administration,” Steil said.

Asked if Trump was hijacking the event when he took part in the groundbreaking at Foxconn, state GOP Chair Brian Schimming said a lot of the jobs and development in the area started under Trump and former GOP Gov. Scott Walker.

“So for the president to come in suddenly [say] hey, you know, I’ve helped get all these jobs here in Racine County just isn’t accurate,” Schimming said.

But Microsoft President Brad Smith said during yesterday’s White House event that everything the company is doing in Racine County and Wisconsin benefits “directly from the work of this White House and this president.”

Smith said the bipartisan infrastructure law of 2022 is making it easier to transport the steel to build the plant while boosting broadband. He said the Inflation Reduction Act made it possible to achieve energy goals and praised the president’s efforts to embrace artificial intelligence to ensure it’s used responsibly.

He also singled out the CHIPS Act that Biden signed in 2022 to boost funding for domestic research and manufacturing of semiconductors in the U.S.

“A data center without chips doesn’t do much for anybody,” Smith said.

Watch the video.

— Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry has acquired ATEK Metal Technologies, an Iowa manufacturing company.

Manitowoc-based WAF yesterday announced the acquisition, with CEO Sachin Shivaram noting ATEK is a “key supplier” to Harley-Davidson in Milwaukee.

“More than 100 years ago, Harley was among WAF’s foundational customers in the early 1900s and, with this acquisition, we’re pleased to have this story come full circle and with the strong relationship ATEK leadership has forged with all its customers,” Shivaram said in a statement.

WAF says the acquisition will expand the company’s operations — which include producing aluminum and copper-based alloy castings — while also helping it reach “key markets” such as motorsports, transportation, agriculture and health care.

ATEK employs 220 people, according to the announcement.

This is the fourth acquisition WAF has made in recent years, the release shows, after the company previously bought Minnesota-based DEE Inc., Manitowoc Pattern & Machining and Wabash Castings in Indiana. The manufacturer says it’s also currently spending $25 million to expand its Manitowoc facilities.

See the release.

— The Medical College of Wisconsin is touting its role in getting Medicare coverage expanded to include a certain type of stem cell transplants for qualifying patients.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently moved to expand Medicare coverage to include allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplants, or HCT, for eligible patients with a group of disorders that affect blood cell production. These are called myelodysplastic syndromes, or MDS.

The move was based on research conducted over decades through the college’s Cancer Center in partnership with various groups including the National Marrow Donor Program, according to yesterday’s release from MCW.

Dr. Douglas Rizzo is senior scientific director of the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research and Cancer Service Line director at Froedtert & MCW. He says the previous lack of coverage under Medicare was “largely due to limited clinical research” on transplants benefiting older patients.

“This challenge was further exacerbated since older adults were, consequently, overlooked as candidates for transplant because they did not have Medicare coverage for the procedure,” he said in a statement.

Researchers developed observational and interventional trials to gather evidence to inform Medicare policy, according to Rizzo, enabling qualifying beneficiaries to enroll for treatment at transplant centers for the first time.

“In the first three years after Medicare agreed to provide coverage conditional on participating in approved studies, the number of transplants more than quadrupled, and we started to see lifesaving outcomes that proved our belief that older patients would benefit from transplantation, just the same as younger patients,” he said.

Subsequent studies have led to nearly 6,000 people with MDS over age 65 getting access to transplants, according to the release. Results published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology showed the transplants provided “significant survival advantage” and better quality of life for recipients, MCW notes.

See more in the release.

Top headlines from the Health Care Report…

— Stimulants such as methamphetamine and cocaine are now a “major part” of the overdose death crisis, and meth-related deaths in Wisconsin are expected to increase over time.

For more of the most relevant health care news, reports on groundbreaking research in Wisconsin, links to top stories and more, sign up today for the free daily Health Care Report from WisPolitics and WisBusiness.com.

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— Cranberry growers in Wisconsin produced just over 5 million barrels of the fruit last year, marking an increase from the previous year’s total of 4.8 million barrels.

The state again ranked first in the nation for cranberry production, making up 62% of the U.S. total, according to the latest USDA cranberry report. Growers in the state produced more than twice as much as the No. 2 ranked state, Massachusetts.

The total value of utilized production in the state was $187 million for last year, which is the largest that figure has been since at least 2014. Ninety-four percent of that utilized production total was in the form of processed cranberries.

While total harvested acres fell slightly over the year, from 19,500 to 19,100, average yield per acre rose 7% from 246.2 barrels to 262.3 barrels. At the same time, the price of cranberries fell 3% over the year to $37.40 per barrel.

See the report.

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