The Trump administration just announced its plans to utilize U.S. Energy Department resources and land to build data centers for AI. The Energy Department is looking at thousands of acres of federal land around the country that can hastily develop data centers. One of the reasons for this being that the government can quickly give permits for nuclear reactors and other power plants to power the facilities.
“The global race for AI dominance is the next Manhattan project,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement. “The Department of Energy is taking important steps to leverage our domestic resources to power the AI revolution while continuing to deliver affordable, reliable and secure energy to the American people.”
Building power plants to meet the anticipated increased electricity demand is one of the largest challenges for big tech companies like Amazon, Microsoft, etc. as they try to develop data centers to meet AI requirements. NextEra Energy anticipates that power demand in the U.S. will increase 55% over the next 20 years.
So far, the Energy Department has noted 16 sites around the country to build data centers from a national laboratory in New Jersey to nuclear sites in South Carolina.
The agency plans to have data centers established by the closing of 2027. The Energy Department stated that companies that partner with it will have access to top-tier research facilities on sites “furthering advancements in both the power systems design needed to run the centers and developing next-generation data center hardware.”
“The Trump Administration will unleash federal resources to build out the data resources needed for an AI-powered future,” White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios said in a statement.
