US Energy Chief Plans to Use Federal Land to Build Data Centers

(Bloomberg) -- The Trump administration unveiled plans Thursday to use Energy Department land and resources to build data centers for artificial intelligence.

The Energy Department said it’s exploring using thousands of acres of federal land nationwide that are positioned to quickly develop data-centers, in part because the government can fast-track permitting for nuclear reactors and other power plants to run the facilities. 

“The global race for AI dominance is the next Manhattan project,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement. “The Department of Energy is taking important steps to leverage our domestic resources to power the AI revolution, while continuing to deliver affordable, reliable and secure energy to the American people.”

Quickly building enough power plants to meet the expected surge in electricity demand is among the biggest challenges facing Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Microsoft Corp., Meta Platforms Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and others as they push to develop massive data center to underpin AI development. The nation’s biggest utility, NextEra Energy Inc., has forecast US power demand will grow 55% over the next 20 years.

The Energy Department said it identified 16 sites nationwide ideal to build data centers, including sprawling campuses of national laboratories such as the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in central New Jersey, nuclear sites in South Carolina and Texas and former uranium enrichment plants in Kentucky and Ohio.

Wright plans to discuss the effort Thursday during a visit to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, with the state’s governor, Jared Polis.

Officials are seeking input from data center developers and others to forge public-private partnerships to advance AI development. The Energy Department aims to have data centers up and running on its land by the end of 2027.  

The agency said companies that partner with the agency will have access to world-class research facilities on sites “furthering advancements in both the power systems design needed to run the centers and developing next-generation data center hardware.”

“The Trump Administration will unleash federal resources to build out the data resources needed for an AI-powered future,” White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios said in a statement.

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