Thermal Confirms Load at Microsoft's Fairwater MKE04

Microsoft | Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin (MISO) | MKE04 72 MW and MKE03 42 MW (114 MW first facility; campus building out) | Drone flight: August 20, 2026

A thermal drone pass over Microsoft's Fairwater campus in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin on August 20, 2026 shows the heat exchangers serving MKE04 rejecting heat. Sections of the cooling array read distinctly warm against the cooler fan structures, and the header lines feeding the array read warm in places. The warmth is sectional rather than uniform, so the array reads as running under partial or ramping load, not full output across every bank.

Microsoft announced on June 23, 2026 that its first Fairwater facility is fully operational, with equipment brought online and startup run in April 2026, and that a second facility is under construction beside it. Vulcan's satellite record confirmed both halls, MKE03 and MKE04, under construction in the first half of 2025 and marked their construction complete in mid-January 2026, placing them in the first facility Microsoft has declared operational. IIR Energy still lists both halls as Under Construction with a reported start of June 30, 2026, now several weeks past. The drone was flown to close the gap between that reported status and the operational picture, and the thermal pass provides ground truth on MKE04.

Fairwater campus, 8/20/2026. MKE04, in the foreground, is served by the cooling array; MKE03 is the long hall at right, cooled by side-mounted units.

Campus thermal, 8/20/2026. The reflective hall roofs read cool and the cooling banks beside the halls read warm. Midday sun warms the concrete aprons, which compresses the warm-to-cool contrast.

MKE04: cooling array under partial load

The two nadir passes over the MKE04 cooling array show the same picture. On thermal, the coil surfaces around and between the fans read warm while the fan hubs and blades stay cooler, the pattern of a bank actively rejecting heat. The warmth is not even across the array. In the first pass, the lower banks read clearly warm while the upper rows sit closer to ambient. In the second pass, over the header end of the array, the left bank of coils reads warm and the header lines carrying fluid to the units read warm in places, while sections of the adjacent bank read cooler. Taken together, the array reads as running under partial or ramping load rather than uniform full output.

This flight was flown near midday under clear sun, which warms the roofs, aprons, and idle equipment and narrows the gap between warm and cool surfaces. The operating read here rests on the differential signals that solar loading cannot produce: warm coil faces set against cooler fan structures, warm header lines, and the section-to-section variation across the array. Across the rest of the campus, the next facility is still going up, so this is a site in mid-build with its first halls carrying load.

MKE04 cooling array. Visible (left) and thermal (right), 8/20/2026. The boxes mark the warm lower banks; the upper rows read closer to ambient.

MKE04 header end. Visible (left) and thermal (right), 8/20/2026. The left bank of coils reads warm (left box) and the header lines read warm in places (lower-right box). Sections of the adjacent bank read cooler.

MKE03: built and reported operational

MKE03, the longer hall, is built. Vulcan's record marks it as construction complete in mid-January 2026, placing it in the same first facility Microsoft reports operational. It is cooled differently from MKE04, using side-mounted units rather than a large external fan array, so there is no large external surface for a thermal sensor to read from above. This pass does not show a strong thermal signal for MKE03, which reflects that cooling design rather than the hall being offline. Microsoft's own announcement places it in the operational phase.

MKE16: second facility still under construction

The evening pass caught the MKE16 build. The shell is up, with steelwork and site work active and cranes working the structure. Vulcan marks MKE16 as Confirmed, meaning under construction, with a weekly progress score at the top of its range. IIR Energy lists it as Planned with a reported start of December 31, 2027. This matches Microsoft's statement that a second facility is under construction beside the first.

MKE16 under construction, evening of 8/20/2026. The shell is up with active steelwork and site work, and cranes are working the structure.

Unit status (August 20, 2026)

Reported status and dates are from IIR Energy. Observations are from the August 20 drone pass.

Direct Intelligence at Your Fingertips

Vulcan pairs satellite monitoring with on-site thermal drone verification, providing the ground truth needed to look past reported milestones.

• For current clients: You direct our intelligence gathering. Vulcan runs dedicated thermal drone flights regularly, driven by subscriber demand. Submit site suggestions or commission targeted flyovers to validate your highest-conviction positions.
• Custom mission requests: Send drone flight suggestions to David Bellman at dbellman@synmax.com.

Not yet a Vulcan client? If you need to stay ahead of construction delays and confirm which facilities are actually energized before the market does, reach out to David Bellman at dbellman@synmax.com to schedule a demo of our integrated satellite and drone dashboard.