The U.S. Department of Energy has identified 16 federal locations for potential construction of data centers and associated energy resources. The agency on Thursday published a request for information for stakeholders, including grid operators, about the potential for projects that could be online in less than two years.
“The global race for AI dominance is the next Manhattan project, and with President Trump’s leadership and the innovation of our National Labs, the United States can and will win,” Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said in a statement. DOE “is taking important steps to leverage our domestic resources to power the AI revolution.”
Data centers today account for about 4.5% of U.S. electricity consumption, but could reach 12% by 2028, the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project noted in a recent report.
The RFI aligns with plans Trump announced in January to accelerate power plant development for co-located artificial intelligence data centers using an energy emergency declaration. It is also similar to an executive order former President Biden signed in January, targeting development of AI data centers powered by clean energy. The RFI, however, does not specify clean energy will be used in powering data centers.
Responses to the RFI are due within 30 days of its publication in the Federal Register.
DOE “seeks to assess industry interest in developing, operating, and maintaining AI infrastructure on select DOE owned or managed lands, along with information on potential development approaches, technology solutions, operational models, and economic considerations,” according to the RFI. It also “seeks input from grid operators that serve DOE sites on opportunities and challenges associated with existing energy infrastructure and potential co-location of data centers with new energy generation.”
The RFI seeks input on a range of subjects, including data center “power needs, timelines, and approaches to co-locating energy sources with data centers or sources for surplus interconnection capacity.”
DOE said it wants construction to begin by the end of this year, “with a target of commencing operation by the end of 2027.”
The RFI includes potential hosting capacity at the identified sites, and other details.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Flatiron Campus, for example, “has enough land, power, water, and broadband capability to host a 100 MW data center that could be initiated as soon as this year,” according to the RFI. Argonne National Laboratory could accommodate a future 1,000 MW AI “data park” with an early target for operations by 2028.
Other locations identified in the RFI are the: Idaho National Laboratory; Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant; Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant; Brookhaven National Laboratory; Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; National Energy Technology Laboratory; Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory; Los Alamos National Laboratory; Sandia National Laboratories; Savannah River Site; Pantex Plant; and Kansas City National Security Campus.
