Microsoft unveils the world’s first AI superfactory, called the Atlanta Fairwater data centre, that connect hundreds of thousands of Nvidia Blackwell GPUs

The race to train frontier AI models is pushing data centre infrastructure to its physical limits – and the constraints are increasing.

So much so, now the speed of light is determining how tightly processors can be packed together – and heat dissipation governs how much power can be pumped through a rack.

These are the hard boundaries influencing where and how AI gets built.

Tackling the challenge, Microsoft has opened its second Fairwater AI data centre in Atlanta, Georgia, connecting it to the existing Wisconsin site through a dedicated AI wide area network.

What’s unique about the factory is that the company has designed the facility to house hundreds of thousands of Nvidia GB200 and GB300 graphics processing units (GPUs) in a single flat network architecture – abandoning the traditional cloud data centre model in favour of something purpose-built for the demands of modern AI training.

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