The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Friday announced plans to help ensure America leads the world in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and lower energy costs by co-locating data centers and new energy infrastructure on DOE lands. DOE has released a Request for Information (RFI) to inform possible use of DOE land for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure development to support growing demand for data centers.
DOE has identified 16 potential sites uniquely positioned for rapid data center construction, including in-place energy infrastructure with the ability to fast-track permitting for new energy generation such as nuclear.
In accordance with President Trump‘s Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence and Unleashing American Energy Executive Orders, DOE is exploring opportunities to accelerate AI and energy infrastructure development across the country, prioritizing public-private partnerships to advance the use of innovative technologies and strategies.
“The global race for AI dominance is the next Manhattan project, and with President Trump’s leadership and the innovation of our National Labs, the United States can and will win,” Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said. “With today’s action, 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.”
“President Trump is committed to ensuring American leadership in artificial intelligence and Secretary Wright is delivering,” said White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios. “The Trump Administration will unleash Federal resources to build out the data resources needed for an AI-powered future.”
The Department is seeking input from data center developers, energy developers, and the broader public to further advance this partnership. The information collected will be used to inform development, encourage private-public partnerships and enable the construction of AI infrastructure at select DOE sites with a target of commencing operation by the end of 2027.
The sites also offer the industry a chance to partner with DOE’s world-class research facilities co-located on the sites, furthering advancements in both the power systems design needed to run the centers and developing next-generation data center hardware. Publicly available information about each site, including location, available acreage, and other characteristics is provided in appendices to the RFI.
Additionally, the RFI aims to gather information on potential development approaches, technology solutions, operational models, and economic considerations associated with establishing AI infrastructure.
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
Summary: Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and Princeton University (PU) explore the opportunity to have been at the cutting edge of high-performance computing and AI developments for decades, from Alan Turing’s Ph.D. in the 1930s to John Hopfield’s 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics for neural networks to Egemen Kolemen’s Nature paper in 2024 using AI for fusion reactor control. The intellectual breadth of AI work in the Princeton ecosystem, including the recent announcement of an AI Hub for NJ centered here, combined with the available land and power infrastructure, make PPPL and PU ideal partners to host an AI data center and foster innovations that will advance computational science and scientific discovery. This center would emphasize accelerating fusion energy development and energy system optimization, exploit new data that will come from the NSTX-U fusion user facility that will come online in 2026, and foster public-private fusion partnerships. By aligning with the Department of Energy’s broader AI development objectives, this center would drive advancements in AI tool development and implementation, support regional economic growth, and deliver on the vision of enabling next generation computing capabilities through shared synergy, strength, and leadership.
Site Details: PPPL is located in central New Jersey, occupying ~88 acres on PU’s Forrestal Campus. Forrestal Campus, located approximately three miles north of the University’s main campus, encompasses 825 acres and hosts a blend of commercial leases, open space, and laboratory sites (DOE’s PPPL and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL)). Forrestal Campus offers a vibrant, cross-cutting ecosystem primed for test-bed development opportunities in AI. Public Service Electric & Gas Co. (PSE&G) is our site’s local energy provider, NJ’s oldest and largest gas and electric delivery public utility and one of the nation’s largest. Our site currently has 100 MW of energy capacity with district upgrade potential available, and current water contract with NJ Water Supply Authority includes ~55 million gallons/year. The physical location in central New Jersey provides proximity to metropolitan areas and a multitude of commercial entities, providing ease of access for data center workforce and user recruitment. The PPPL-PU-hosted AI data center would also support an eastern hub of AI innovation serving public and private partners in (for example) Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.
