The Energy Department, NextEra Energy and other companies said Wednesday they signed a partnership to turn a former uranium enrichment site on federal land in Kentucky into a $100 billion data center hub powered by natural gas and battery storage.
The privately funded project at the Paducah site, part of a DOE effort to build data centers on federal land, is expected to support as much as 1.8 gigawatts of utility capacity and some 1.2 GW of computing capacity once fully constructed in 2032.
As well as NextEra, the group of companies involved includes investment firm Brookfield, the generation and transmission cooperative Big Rivers Electric Power Corp., the rural electric cooperative Jackson Purchase Energy Cooperative and Paducah Power System, a municipal system serving 22,500 customers.
It lands as the Trump administration has sought to advance the build-out of data centers and AI infrastructure across the country, including on federal land. The White House last week expanded its nonbinding Ratepayer Protection Pledge, to include several utilities — including NextEra, Big Rivers Electric Corporation and Jackson Purchase Energy Cooperative — and most of the nation’s GOP governors.
