The Trump administration is repurposing federal land to accelerate the development of AI data centers, with projects ranging from a former Cold War uranium enrichment site in Kentucky to a contested environmental review transfer in Nevada.
The US Department of Energy will convert the shuttered Paducah Site in Kentucky into a data center campus and gas plants. The project is backed by more than $100 billion in private investment and is expected to create approximately 8,000 construction jobs and 600 permanent jobs.
The Paducah campus will include a two-gigawatt natural gas power plant that will produce surplus energy for the local community. Project partners include Brookfield, NextEra Energy, Big Rivers Electric Power Corporation, Jackson Purchase Energy Cooperative, and Paducah Power System.
Similar projects are being planned, including redeveloping a former nuclear enrichment site in Piketon, Ohio, and exploring another at a federal nuclear site in South Carolina.
In Nevada, the US Bureau of Land Management approved the first data center on BLM-managed public land by transferring an environmental review from a solar project to an AI data center in June 2025. The original project, Townsite Solar 2, received a federal right-of-way in 2023 to build a solar farm and battery storage on an 80-acre parcel in Boulder City.
The approved data center will consume up to 167 MW—enough to power 75,000 homes—with backup generators, compared to the solar project's 19 MW. Boulder City has a population of 15,000 and about 6,600 occupied households.
BLM used a Determination of NEPA Adequacy; BLM Las Vegas field office manager Bruce Sillitoe concluded the projects were "substantially the same" based on similar acreage, boundaries, construction timelines, and structure size and shape. The Boulder City Council voted unanimously on July 14 to appeal BLM's decision to the Interior Board of Land Appeals and seek to pause the project.
Townsite Solar 2 initially sought 88.5 acres of city-owned land; when it applied to switch, Boulder City required a new review, and the Planning Commission voted 6-1 against advancing the proposal. The developer then withdrew and secured approval on adjacent federal land less than half a mile away.
Townsite Solar 2 says the data center will use waterless cooling, draw power from its own renewable sources, and fund local energy and water initiatives. Heatmap reports that Arevon, which holds a minority stake in the project, hired lobbyists from the Bernhardt Group led by David Bernhardt, who served as interior secretary under Trump; Arevon says it owns less than 25% and did not hire lobbyists specifically for this project.
The Trump administration has pushed to accelerate AI data center construction, urged Congress to preempt state AI regulations, and allowed 'islanded' power plants for data centers to be exempt from the Environmental Protection Agency's Acid Rain Program. The White House helped organize a voluntary pledge from industry participants not to pass on elevated electricity costs to customers.