The Energy Department is inviting private-sector proposals to build data centers and supporting energy infrastructure at the Kentucky site, with at least one project targeted to break ground in June 2026.
The Department of Energy has issued a Request for Offer seeking private-sector developers to build AI data centers and energy infrastructure at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in western Kentucky, a former government-owned uranium enrichment facility that operated from 1952 until 2013. The initiative envisions long-term leasing arrangements funded by developers, with the government contributing land and existing utilities, including a 30-million-gallon-per-day water pump originally built for industrial-scale cooling. Paducah is one of four federal sites selected for AI infrastructure projects, alongside Idaho National Laboratory and the Oak Ridge site in Tennessee. The DOE’s Office of Environmental Management issued the solicitation in November 2025, with groundbreaking for at least one Paducah data center project slated for June 2026 and full operations anticipated by the end of 2027. The local Citizens Advisory Board endorsed the concept in May 2025 as federal AI executive orders pushed agencies to plan more strategically for compute infrastructure.