Sign In or Create an Account.

By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy

Energy

Exclusive: Trump’s Plans to Build AI Data Centers on Federal Land

The Department of Energy has put together a list of sites and is requesting proposals from developers, Heatmap has learned.

A data center and Nevada land.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Department of Energy is moving ahead with plans to allow companies to build AI data centers and new power plants on federal land — and it has put together a list of more than a dozen sites nationwide that could receive the industrial-scale facilities, according to an internal memo obtained by Heatmap News.

The memo lists sites in Texas, Illinois, New Jersey, Colorado, and other locations. The government could even allow new power plants — including nuclear reactors and carbon-capture operations — to be built on the same sites to generate enough electricity to power the data centers, the memo says.

Trump officials hope to start construction on the new data centers by the end of this year and switch them on by the end of 2027, according to the memo.

The agency will request formal feedback from artificial intelligence companies and developers about how best to proceed with its proposal as soon as Thursday, according to an individual who wasn’t authorized to speak about the matter publicly.

The effort, aimed at maintaining America’s “global AI dominance,” represents one of the few points of agreement between the Trump and Biden administrations. In the final days of his term, President Biden ordered the government to identify federal properties where new data centers could be built.

Scarcely a week later, President Trump issued an executive order lifting all Biden-era limits on AI development — but keeping the mandate to move quickly to maintain America’s alleged edge in the new technology. “It is the policy of the United States to sustain and enhance America’s global AI dominance,” the Trump order said.

The new memo proposes a list of 16 federal sites that could host AI data centers, new power plants, and other “AI infrastructure.” They include several sites where nuclear weapon components are made, including the Pantex site near Amarillo, Texas, and the Kansas City National Security Campus, which is operated by Honeywell International. The other candidate sites are:

  • Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls, Idaho
  • Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant near Paducah, Kentucky
  • Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Pike County, Ohio
  • Argonne National Laboratory in DuPage County, Illinois
  • Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York
  • Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in DuPage County, Illinois
  • National Energy Technology Laboratory in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Morgantown, West Virginia; and Albany, Oregon
  • National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado
  • Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee
  • Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington
  • Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in Plainsboro Township, New Jersey
  • Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico
  • Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico
  • Savannah River Site in Aiken, Allendale and Barnwell Counties, South Carolina

Other sites could still be considered, the memo says, and the current list has no particular ranking or order.

The offer may not be enough to convince developers to work with the federal government, one energy expert told me.

“I think it’s important that the government is thinking about how to help the industry, but you also have to think about it from the perspective of the industry a little bit. Why is doing this on a DOE site better than doing this as a project in Texas?” said Peter Freed, a founding partner at the Near Horizon Group and the former director of energy strategy at Meta.

“Historically, the perspective is that anything involving government land just adds complexity,” Freed told me. “I love Idaho National Lab. It’s a national treasure. But if you want a data center there by the end of 2027 — where is the power going to come from?”

Only if the government were able to guarantee fast-track access to certain kinds of equipment — such as transformers or circuit breakers, which are in a severe shortage — would it make sense for most developers to work with them, he said.

The new memo raises the idea that “innovative energy technologies” including “nuclear reactors, enhanced geothermal systems, fuel cells, carbon capture, energy storage systems, and portfolios of on-site technologies” could be considered to power the new data centers.

The memo asks potential developers, “What information would you need to determine the suitability of various energy storage systems (e.g., subsurface thermal energy storage, flow battery, metal anode battery) as a means for supporting data center cooling or other operations?” It also asks what companies would need to know about a site’s suitability for carbon capture and storage operations. It asks, too, what information might be needed about a site’s topography, physical security, and earthquake risk to build a new nuclear power plant.

The memo doesn’t mention wind turbines or new solar farms, although they could fall under some of the terms it sets out. It also asks companies what information they might need about nearby nuclear power plants or the local power grid — and it inquires whether some data center operations could be turned on and off depending on local power availability.

Although the government could allow new data centers to be built, it won’t accept all liability for them. The memo adds that companies might need to “agree to bear all responsibility for costs and liabilities related to construction and operation of the Al data centers as well as other infrastructure upgrades necessary to support those data centers.”

The Trump administration seems intent on moving quickly on the proposal. Once it publishes the request, companies will have 30 days to respond.

You’re out of free articles.

Subscribe today to experience Heatmap’s expert analysis 
of climate change, clean energy, and sustainability.
To continue reading
Create a free account or sign in to unlock more free articles.
or
Please enter an email address
By continuing, you agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge our Privacy Policy
Politics

What J.P. Morgan’s Chief Climate Advisor Is Telling Energy Startups

Rob talks with Sarah Kapnick about our new era of energy insecurity.

Clean energy.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

We live in a new energy era — one in which the inputs and technologies key to clean electricity production are at the heart of international politics. What will that mean for decarbonization? And how should climate tech companies prepare?

On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob chats about those questions and more with Dr. Sarah Kapnick. She is the Global Head of Climate Advisory at J.P. Morgan, where she advises the bank's clients on climate, energy, biodiversity and sustainability topics. She was the former chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration from 2022 to 2024, and was previously a research scientist at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, New Jersey.

Keep reading...Show less
Green
Energy

Why Mining Is the Dirty Underbelly of the Clean Energy Transition

Thea Riofrancos, a professor of political science at Providence College, discusses her new book, Extraction, and the global consequences of our growing need for lithium.

Lithium mining.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

We cannot hope to halt or even slow dangerous climate change without remaking our energy systems, and we cannot remake our energy systems without environmentally damaging projects like lithium mines.

This is the perplexing paradox at the heart of Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism, a new book by political scientist and climate activist Thea Riofrancos, coming out September 23, from Norton.

Keep reading...Show less
Yellow
Electric Vehicles

Elon Musk Defeats Reality, Again

The CEO’s $1 billion share buy changes nothing — except in the eyes of his shareholders.

Elon Musk.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

Elon Musk’s signature talent, the thing that made him the world’s richest man, has long been his ability to make Tesla’s stock price soar. It’s a superpower that manifests through a combination of financial lever-pulling and promises of world-changing innovations to come. For this reason, it leads to glaring disconnects such as Tesla having become the world’s most valuable automaker despite selling only a 10th as many vehicles as a true manufacturing superpower like Toyota.

By that yardstick, this week’s news might be his biggest achievement yet.

Keep reading...Show less