A portion of the massive former federal uranium enrichment site in Paducah, Ky., is set to be privately redeveloped into what could be one of the nation’s largest artificial intelligence data center campuses.
A consortium led by Canadian infrastructure investment firm Brookfield Corp. and power company NextEra Energy was picked to invest more than $100 billion to build the 1.8-GW AI and high-performance computing innovation campus with power support infrastructure on up to 1,100 leased acres of the more than 3,500-acre site, the U.S Energy Dept. said on July 30. The agency said it selected the firms last year, in response to its request for site redevelopment offers.
Also to be involved are utilities Big Rivers Electric Power Corp., Jackson Purchase Energy Cooperative and Paducah Power System, which will provide wholesale and distribution services.
Federal uranium enrichment began at Paducah, about 230 miles southwest of Louisville, in 1952 for defense purposes, transitioned to private production for power plants in the 1960s, and was stopped in 2013, with existing transmission, water and other infrastructure on site. DOE-managed cleanup, decontamination and environmental remediation efforts started at the site before commercial uranium enrichment stopped in 2013, and are set to continue until 2065, with an estimaed $17-billion cost/.
To support an estimated 600-acre data center campus, NextEra will develop 2 GW of new grid-connected natural gas-fired generation in about 200 acres, upgrade existing transmission infrastructure and deploy up to 2.6 GW of battery energy storage on a leased site of about 300 acres. Excess energy is to be delivered to the regional grid for distribution by local utility partners. The power service agreement must first receive approval by the Kentucky Public Service Commission.
Construction is expected to be completed in 2031, according to DOE. The agency announced no direct federal funding or incentives—and no contractors have been disclosed by DOE, Brookfield or NextEra—nor names of a data center tenant or prospect. DOE claimed the project would «create approximately 8,000 jobs and 600 permanent jobs.»
The Brookfield/NextEra project is one of several initiatives underway at the Paducah site. Earlier this year, General Matter announced plans to invest $1.5 billion in a new uranium enrichment facility there to produce fuel for commercial and next-generation nuclear reactors. In 2025, Global Laser Enrichment proposed a $1.76-billion project that will use advanced laser technology to turn more than 200,000 metric tons of site depleted uranium into fuel for commercial nuclear power plants.
The project is part of the federal effort to encourage private development of manufacturing, technology and energy projects on federally-owned sites that already possess extensive water, road and power distribution infrastructure. Earlier this year, DOE announced a public-private partnership with SoftBank and AEP Ohio to build 10 GW of new generation capacity to power data center development at the former Portsmouth, Ohio, uranium enrichment site.
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