(Bloomberg) -- NextEra Energy Inc., the largest US power utility, is teaming up with Brookfield on a more than $100 billion transformation of a shuttered Cold War uranium-enrichment facility in Kentucky into a data center campus with a generating plant.
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The privately funded effort will include construction of 2 gigawatts of natural gas-fired power at or near the site in Paducah in western Kentucky, and as much as 2.6 gigawatts of battery storage capacity, the Energy Department is announcing Wednesday. For context, a single gigawatt of capacity is roughly the output of a traditional nuclear power plant and can power about 750,000 homes at any given moment.
The project comes as the Trump administration is determined to address surging power demand from data centers that are provoking considerable political opposition. Failure to add new electric capacity would threaten a key priority for Trump — winning the AI race against China — and worsen the spike in electricity prices that could represent a political liability come the November midterm elections.
"The U.S. government is leveraging its assets — like our federal lands — to add power generation, create jobs, and ensure the United States wins the AI race," Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement. The more than $100 billion privately funded investment, one of the largest in Kentucky's history, is expected to create 8,000 construction jobs and 600 permanent positions, the department said.
Brookfield will develop and operate the 1.8 GW data center campus, which will occupy portions of the sprawling 3,556-acre Energy Department site once used to produce weapons-grade uranium and fuel for nuclear reactors. Operations using the now obsolete enrichment technology known as gaseous diffusion stopped in 2013 and the site is now subject to cleanup efforts. Construction is expected to be completed in 2031, the Energy Department said.
The project, which also includes partnerships with local electric cooperatives, comes as soaring demand for artificial-intelligence tools has touched off a worldwide expansion of data centers. The buildout has touched off concerns across the US about increasing costs for water and electricity. The Trump administration has been trying to address those concerns ahead of the midterms by, among other things, exacting pledges from technology companies that they'll pick up the costs.