NextEra and Brookfield Plan to Invest Over $100 Billion to Build Kentucky Data Campus
Taylor Wilson
NextEra Energy and Brookfield plan to invest over $100 billion in a data center campus on a Cold War-era uranium enrichment site in Kentucky — a signal that idle federal land is becoming a strategic asset in the AI compute race.
Who is spending $100 billion, and where?
NextEra Energy, the largest U.S. utility, is partnering with Canadian asset manager Brookfield. The site is in Paducah, Kentucky, spanning roughly 3,556 acres.
The land once housed a gaseous-diffusion uranium enrichment plant that produced weapons-grade uranium and reactor fuel. It shut down in 2013 and is still being cleaned up.
In plain terms = a decommissioned federal nuclear site is being repurposed as an AI-era data center base.
What exactly will be built?
Brookfield will develop and operate a 1.8 GW data center campus, targeted for completion by 2031.
The project includes 2 GW of new natural gas generation and up to 2.6 GW of battery storage, with a local electric cooperative also involved.
This means → the campus is not just server halls. It is an integrated "power plant + storage + data center" build — generating, storing, and consuming its own electricity.
Why build on a federal site?
The U.S. Department of Energy is channeling federal land assets into private development as part of the Trump administration's AI infrastructure push.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright said: "The U.S. government is leveraging federal land and other assets to boost power generation, create jobs, and ensure America wins the AI race."
This reflects a deeper shift: AI compute demand is too large and too urgent for purely market-driven site acquisition. The government is putting idle federal assets directly on the table.
What are the economic stakes?
The DOE estimates the $100 billion+ private investment will create 8,000 construction jobs and 600 permanent positions.
It would rank among the largest investments in Kentucky's history.
In plain terms = for the local economy, a shuttered nuclear facility becomes the biggest economic engine the state has ever seen.
Can this model be replicated?
SoftBank has already announced plans to develop a data center campus at another DOE uranium enrichment site in Ohio, at a scale potentially reaching $500 billion.
Both projects follow the same logic: surging AI compute demand → mega-scale data centers must be built → idle federal land and power infrastructure become the key accelerant.
Whether $100 billion in private capital can hit the 2031 completion target will be the critical test of whether "federal site to data center" is a viable, repeatable model.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.