Federal government to turn a Kentucky uranium plant into an AI data center and gas power complex

The Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant is seen near Paducah, Ky., Nov. 18, 2013. (AP Photo/Stephen Lance Dennee) 2026-07-30T21:38:34Z The U.S. Department of Energy is harnessing the Artificial Intelligence boom in its bid to convert another Cold War-era uranium enrichment site, tapping private equity to fund a $100 billion data center complex that will include its own new natural gas and battery storage power plant in Kentucky. The department selected investment firm Brookfield Asset Management to develop and operate the data center at the government-owned Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. In March, the department announced a similar project at its Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio. Both are undergoing extensive cleanup, decontamination and decommissioning after decades of fueling the nation’s nuclear weapons and power plants. The project is in line with the Trump administration’s efforts to make Artificial Intelligence superiority over China a top national security and economic priority. The federal government is transforming former DOE sites into “engines of innovation and economic growth” to “ensure the United States wins the A.I. race,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement Wednesday. “There will be a lot of new natural gas power plants, a large data center, thousands of jobs and tens of billions of dollars of investment in rural western Kentucky,” Wright said on the Fox News show “Fox & Friends.” Earlier in July, the Department of Energy said it had picked engineering contractor Amentum to negotiate a lease to develop an AI data center and on-site power plant at South Carolina’s Savannah River Site, a massive complex where the federal government once produced materials used in nuclear weapons, primarily tritium and plutonium-239. Real estate, energy and data center services are cornerstones in the investment portfolio of New York-headquartered Brookfield, which reports that it has more than $1 trillion in assets under management. (