en.Wedoany.com Reported - The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is leveraging the artificial intelligence construction boom to advance a plan to convert a Cold War-era uranium enrichment plant into a data center complex. The complex, proposed for the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant site in Kentucky, involves a $100 billion private capital investment and will be accompanied by new natural gas power generation and battery energy storage facilities.
The U.S. Department of Energy has selected investment firm Brookfield Asset Management to develop and operate the data center on the government-owned Paducah plant site. In March, the department also announced a similar project at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio. Both facilities, after providing fuel for U.S. nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants for decades, are currently undergoing large-scale cleanup, decontamination, and decommissioning.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement last week that the federal government is transforming former DOE sites into "engines of innovation and economic growth" to "ensure America wins the AI race." In a Fox News program, "Fox & Friends," he stated: "There will be many new natural gas power plants, a massive data center, thousands of jobs, and billions of dollars in investment, located in rural western Kentucky."
In early July, the U.S. Department of Energy announced it had selected engineering contractor Amentum to negotiate a lease agreement for the development of an AI data center and on-site power plant at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. The sprawling complex was once a federal facility for producing nuclear weapons materials, primarily tritium and plutonium-239.
Real estate, energy, and data center services are cornerstones of the portfolio of New York-based Brookfield. The company reports over $1 trillion in assets under management. A company spokesperson estimated that 30% of the $100 billion expenditure would go toward data center and power facility construction, with the remainder used to procure equipment such as servers, routers, and semiconductor chips. According to Brookfield spokesperson Simon Maine, the company is currently in discussions with commercial partners regarding the use of the data center space.
Other partners in the Paducah project include power generation and transmission company NextEra Energy and local utility companies. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, Florida-based NextEra Energy will build and own the power generation facilities, including 2 gigawatts of natural gas generation, transmission grid upgrades, and 2.6 gigawatts of battery energy storage, to support a new 1.8-gigawatt AI data center campus. Upon completion, the plant will become the largest natural gas power plant in Kentucky. By general utility industry standards, 1 gigawatt of electricity can power approximately 750,000 homes.
The power service agreement is subject to approval by state utility regulators, and excess electricity will be delivered to the regional grid. The department stated that construction is expected to be completed by 2031.
