Details at Each Site to Follow: The Energy Department Selects Four of Its Sites for AI Data Centers and Energy Generation

On July 24, 2025, the U.S. Department of Energy, DOE, said in a release that it "has selected four sites" on its lands "to move forward with plans to invite private sector partners" to develop "AI data center and energy generation projects." The four are Idaho National Laboratory, Oak Ridge Reservation, Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant and Savannah River Site. The release names the places. More details on the scope of a project at each, who would be eligible and how to make a submission, it says, will come with a release for each site.

What Informed the Choice

A request for information that DOE issued in April drew "enormous interest," the department says, and it "helped inform the selection of these sites." The release calls the four "well-situated for large-scale data centers, new power generation, and other necessary infrastructure." The Energy Secretary, quoted in the release, says the sites are "uniquely positioned to host data centers as well as power generation to bolster grid reliability," and to strengthen national security and reduce energy costs.

The release says the announcement supports the administration's goals of "utilizing Federal lands to lower energy costs and help power the global AI race." Those goals, it says, are outlined in executive orders on "Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure, Deploying Advanced Nuclear Reactor Technologies for National Security, and Unleashing American Energy."

"Well-situated" is the department's own judgment, and the release gives nothing to test it against. No acreage, no megawatts, no date for power. Until the site releases come, a developer has the claim and not the measure.

What the Release Leaves for Later

The release itself gives no project scope, no eligibility requirements and no submission guidelines. More details on each, it says, "will be available with the site-specific releases." It calls those releases solicitations. The solicitations "are expected to be released in the coming months," and "partners could be selected by the end of the year."

Other Sites and Other Parties

The four may not be the whole list. DOE says it "is also evaluating additional sites that could issue solicitations in the future," and it names none of them.

The department says it "looks forward to working with data center developers, energy companies, and the broader public in consultation with states, local governments, and federally recognized tribes that these projects will serve." What that consultation would involve, the release does not say.

States, local governments and federally recognized tribes are named as parties to the consultation. For a developer, that consultation belongs in the schedule as much as the solicitation does. How long it takes is a question the release leaves open.