Brookfield, NextEra plan $100 billion Kentucky AI data center campus

Brookfield Asset Management and NextEra Energy have unveiled plans for a massive $100 billion artificial intelligence data center campus at the former Paducah uranium enrichment site in Kentucky, marking one of the largest AI infrastructure investments announced in the United States. The project reflects the accelerating race among technology and infrastructure companies to build the computing power needed to support next-generation AI models while simultaneously expanding the energy systems required to operate them.

The development is being led by a consortium that includes Brookfield, NextEra Energy, Big Rivers Electric Power Corp., Jackson Purchase Energy Cooperative, and Paducah Power System. Together, the partners aim to transform the historic Department of Energy property into a large-scale AI computing hub capable of supporting future demand from cloud providers and artificial intelligence companies.

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The proposed campus is expected to provide more than 1.2 gigawatts of data center computing capacity while supporting up to 1.8 gigawatts of operational power demand. The full project is scheduled to be completed by 2032, with construction and deployment taking place in multiple phases over the coming years.

To meet the enormous electricity requirements, NextEra Energy plans to develop approximately 2 gigawatts of natural gas-fired generation alongside 2.6 gigawatts of battery energy storage, creating a dedicated energy backbone for the AI campus. Brookfield will own and oversee the operation of the data center facilities, leveraging its growing investments in digital infrastructure.

The Paducah site offers several advantages because of its existing industrial infrastructure. Originally constructed in the 1950s to enrich uranium for the U.S. nuclear weapons program before later supporting commercial nuclear energy production, the facility already has extensive transmission lines, water resources, transportation access, and fiber-optic connectivity. Those assets are expected to significantly reduce development timelines compared with building an entirely new location.

The announcement comes as artificial intelligence companies dramatically increase spending on computing infrastructure. Training and operating advanced AI models requires thousands of specialized processors housed inside energy-intensive data centers, making reliable electricity one of the industry's most critical resources.

Brookfield Chief Executive Bruce Flatt described the Kentucky campus as the starting point for the firm's broader $100 billion AI infrastructure strategy, signaling that institutional investors are becoming increasingly involved in financing the next generation of digital infrastructure.

The project also aligns with the Trump administration's Ratepayer Protection Pledge, which aims to ensure that electricity costs associated with rapidly expanding AI data centers are borne by the companies developing them rather than being passed on to residential utility customers.

The proposal remains subject to final negotiations and regulatory approvals, and several commercial agreements are still being finalized before construction reaches full scale.

The Kentucky development adds to a growing wave of multibillion-dollar AI infrastructure announcements across the United States. Technology companies including Meta, OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Nvidia have all announced major investments in data centers, power generation, and computing capacity as competition intensifies to build increasingly capable AI systems.

Industry analysts note that access to electricity is rapidly becoming as important as access to advanced semiconductor chips. As AI workloads continue to grow, developers are increasingly selecting locations that already possess large-scale power infrastructure capable of supporting gigawatt-level facilities.

If completed as planned, the Paducah campus would become one of the largest AI-focused data center developments in North America, reinforcing Kentucky's role in the country's evolving digital and energy infrastructure while illustrating how former industrial and energy sites are being repurposed to support the next generation of artificial intelligence.