The U.S. government is converting a decommissioned uranium enrichment facility in Kentucky into a large-scale AI data center.
The U.S. Department of Energy is repurposing Cold War-era uranium enrichment facilities to advance artificial intelligence infrastructure, tapping private equity to fund a $100 billion data center complex in Kentucky. The department selected investment firm Brookfield Asset Management to develop and operate the data center at the government-owned Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, which will include a new natural gas power plant and battery storage system. In March, the department announced a similar project at its Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio, and in July selected engineering contractor Amentum to develop an AI data center and on-site power plant at South Carolina's Savannah River Site.
These former uranium enrichment plants are undergoing extensive cleanup, decontamination, and decommissioning after decades of fueling the nation's nuclear weapons and power production. The projects align with the Trump administration's efforts to establish artificial intelligence superiority over China as a top national security and economic priority. Energy Secretary Chris Wright stated that the federal government is transforming former DOE sites into "engines of innovation and economic growth" to "ensure the United States wins the A.I. race." Wright added: "There will be a lot of new natural gas power plants, a large data center, thousands of jobs and tens of billions of dollars of investment in rural western Kentucky."
Brookfield, a New York-headquartered investment firm with more than $1 trillion in assets under management, emphasized the project's scale and spending breakdown. A Brookfield spokesperson estimated that 30% of the $100 billion investment would support construction of the data center and power components, with the remainder covering equipment including servers, routers, and semiconductor chips. Discussions with commercial partners to lease data center space are ongoing.
The Paducah project includes partnerships with Florida-based NextEra Energy, a power generation and transmission giant, and local utilities. NextEra will build and own the power generation components: 2 gigawatts of natural gas-fired capacity, upgrades to transmission networks, and 2.6 gigawatts of battery energy storage to support a new 1.8 gigawatt AI data center campus. The planned facility would be Kentucky's largest gas-fired power plant; one gigawatt can power approximately 750,000 homes. A power service agreement requires state utility regulator approval, and excess electricity will feed into the regional grid. Construction is expected to be completed in 2031.
The 3,550-acre Paducah site ceased uranium enrichment operations in 2013, when the gaseous diffusion process became obsolete. The DOE projects cleanup completion by 2065 at approximately $17 billion, involving building demolition, uranium converter disassembly, refrigerant removal, and treatment of extensive groundwater contamination. The department is concurrently exploring plans to provide stored uranium waste for re-enrichment by companies using newer technologies for power plant fuel.
Environmental advocates have raised concerns about the project. The newly formed group Protect McCracken County questions the uranium enrichment and data center work proceeding beside a river from which 5 million downstream residents draw drinking water, citing the absence of independent impact studies. Byron Gary, a senior attorney for the Kentucky Resources Council, emphasized that development of the contaminated site and any water table withdrawals must be carefully executed. He highlighted concerns about the climate implications of a large gas-fired power plant and urged that regular ratepayers not subsidize power plant and transmission infrastructure. Gary also warned against the Department of Energy circumventing permitting processes to bypass environmental protection laws: "There shouldn't be a justification to get around that and end up potentially dumping a lot more burden on a rural community that can't afford it."