The Department of Energy is moving forward with plans to build data centers on federal land as part of the administration’s push on nuclear power and artificial intelligence.
In request for proposals posted Tuesday, DOE called on companies to submit plans to construct data centers at the Oak Ridge Reservation in Tennessee and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. That follows a similar request earlier this month to advance data center development at the Idaho National Laboratory.
“This RFP represents more than a ground lease for AI data center development, it offers U.S. companies a potential chance to anchor their partnership with one of our nation’s greatest assets, our national labs,” said Undersecretary for Science Dario Gil.
DOE’s push aims to help address one of the largest challenges facing the energy sector: how to find enough electricity to meet surging demand because of data centers. The requests also shed light on the department’s AI strategy, which calls for developers to “secure utility grid interconnection agreements for power and storage systems” tied to new data centers.
