DOE to turn former Paducah uranium site into a $100 billion AI data-center campus

The US Department of Energy said on July 29 it will redevelop its former uranium-enrichment site in Paducah, Kentucky, into an AI data-center campus paired with dedicated power generation. The project carries more than $100 billion in private funding, the department said.

The plan tackles the constraint now defining the AI buildout: not chips, but power. Brookfield will develop and operate the campus, planned to support up to 1.8 gigawatts of utility capacity and more than 1.2 gigawatts of compute once built out by 2032.

NextEra Energy will build up to 4.6 gigawatts of dedicated generation, including 2 gigawatts of new natural-gas capacity and up to 2.6 gigawatts of battery storage. Big Rivers Electric, Jackson Purchase Energy Cooperative and Paducah Power System will serve as regional partners.

The DOE and NextEra said the project should create about 8,000 construction jobs and 600 permanent jobs, with excess generation sold back to the regional grid to help offset costs for local ratepayers.

The pitch is that a decommissioned federal site with existing grid connections can be turned into compute capacity faster than a greenfield build. The timeline stretches to 2032, and the parties did not detail how much power and compute come online before then, leaving the near-term contribution to a strained grid unclear.