The Growing Data Center Market in Michigan

Michigan has moved from a modest, colocation-focused data center market to one of the more active hyperscale construction markets in the Midwest, largely within the past two years. Several distinct projects illustrate the scale of the shift.

The Saline Township campus

The largest and most-reported project is a data center campus under construction in Saline Township, in Washtenaw County, being built by Detroit-based general contractor Walbridge for Oracle, with OpenAI as the compute customer under its Stargate initiative. Reported investment figures have varied across coverage as the project has scaled — commonly cited around $16 billion — with construction underway through 2026 under a project labor agreement covering thousands of union tradespeople.

A second Walbridge project in Lyon Township

Walbridge is simultaneously involved in a second Michigan data center project, a roughly 1.8-million-square-foot campus proposed for Lyon Township in Oakland County by data center developer Verrus, on land Walbridge owns.

An established colocation base

Alongside new hyperscale construction, Michigan already has a functioning colocation market — including 123NET and 365 Data Centers in the Detroit/Southfield area, US Signal and Switch's large Grand Rapids campus in West Michigan, and OTAVA with facilities including one in Ann Arbor.

A market still working out its regulatory footing

Growth hasn't been uniform or uncontested. Several Michigan communities have adopted moratoria or new zoning rules in response to data center development pressure, and at least one proposed project (in Lansing) was withdrawn before a likely rejection. Michigan also passed a sales-tax exemption for qualifying data centers in 2025, which has been a significant factor in the state's recent competitiveness for these projects — and which is already facing a legislative repeal effort. This is a market that's growing quickly, but not without real friction at the local level.