DeForest QTS Data Center, DeForest, Wisconsin

QTS Data Centers, of Virginia, wanted to build a $12 billion data center campus on about 650 acres in DeForest, Dane County, just north of Madison, Wisconsin, which would have required annexing roughly 1,600 acres from the neighboring town of Vienna. Village staff had been meeting with QTS and Alliant Energy since March 2025, seven months before the plan became public in October 2025, and the secrecy fed the backlash. On Tuesday, February 3, 2026, the DeForest Village Board voted 7-0 against the annexation, and QTS withdrew its rezoning and comprehensive-plan applications before the vote.

The pre-annexation deal DeForest had reached with QTS would have guaranteed at least $1.2 billion of taxable value for 15 years, worth an estimated $12 million a year to local governments by 2031 and $1,772 a year off the tax bill on a $400,000 home. It also included $100,000 a year for 15 years for the Yahara River, $200,000 a year for affordable housing, money toward a planned interstate interchange, and QTS paying for the water, sewer and road work the site needed. "It's our job to provide the best package that we can get from our development, to benefit the population and the village," village administrator Bill Chang said.

None of it was enough to keep the plan alive. "It has become clear that now is not the right time for our proposed project to move forward in DeForest," QTS said in a statement, adding it was disappointed with the outcome. Opposition had built around a Facebook group, No Data Center in DeForest, which grew past 4,100 members. Researcher Tyler Byrnes of the nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum said the deal's public benefits went further than most: "You're not seeing these in other development agreements."

The DeForest Village Board, which turned this annexation down, would decide on any future data center proposal there. Several other Dane County communities, including Cottage Grove, Middleton, Westport and Dane County itself, have since adopted their own moratoriums while they write data center rules.