Microsoft buys North Carolina megasite near the Research Triangle, but won't say why

One of the world’s most valuable companies took a North Carolina megasite off the market this week as Microsoft notified local officials on Thursday it had completed a $27 million purchase of the Person County Mega Park.

The 1,350-acre site sits below the Virginia border, about an hour’s drive north of Durham. Person officials said they had worked with Microsoft on the sale for the past 18 months.

“Microsoft’s presence in Person County will boost our local economy through direct and indirect means, leading to job creation, sustaining a low tax base, and enhancing housing opportunities, among other benefits,” the county’s economic developer, Brandy Lynch, wrote in an email.

The Mega Park was one of six available “megasites” in the state, each offering companies at least 1,000 contiguous acres. What Microsoft will do with the land isn’t clear.

“We don’t have anything to share at this time about the purchase of land in Person County,” company spokesperson Annette Hamilton said in a statement to The News & Observer. “But we are committed to working with the community as we move forward.”

The Triangle Business Journal first reported Microsoft’s purchase.

In the past few years, Toyota, Wolfspeed and VinFast have claimed all or parts of megasites in the state. But compared to these companies, which promised to hire thousands at each location, Microsoft has made no jobs commitment. It did not receive state or local incentives to help with the purchase.

And one of the company’s top development priorities is less labor intensive. To accommodate rising demand for artificial intelligence, Microsoft has sought to build more U.S. data centers.

According to Bloomberg, the software company last quarter spent more money on data centers — nearly $15 billion — than it used to dedicate to a full year of capital expenditures. In September, Microsoft announced it would rely on the reopened Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania to power centers.