NextEra $NEE Energy and Brookfield announced a partnership on Wednesday to develop a $100 billion data center campus at the U.S. Department of Energy's Paducah Site in western Kentucky, a former uranium enrichment facility.
The campus will be built on a former Cold War-era uranium enrichment site and is expected to be completed by 2032
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NextEra $NEE Energy and Brookfield announced a partnership on Wednesday to develop a $100 billion data center campus at the U.S. Department of Energy's Paducah Site in western Kentucky, a former uranium enrichment facility.
The privately funded project will redevelop land at the Paducah Site, a facility that dates to 1952 when it was originally established to enrich uranium for Cold War purposes, the companies said. Once complete, the campus is expected to support up to 1.8 gigawatts of utility capacity and over 1.2 gigawatts of compute capacity.
NextEra Energy will build and own the generation assets serving the campus, with plans calling for as much as 2 gigawatts of natural gas capacity paired with as much as 2.6 gigawatts of battery energy storage systems. Brookfield will own and operate the data center campus. The project is designed to add power generation resources in stages as the campus expands.
The partnership also includes Big Rivers Electric Power Corporation, Jackson Purchase Energy Cooperative, and Paducah Power System. Big Rivers Electric Power Corporation will provide wholesale electric service, while Jackson Purchase Energy Cooperative will deliver retail service.
The project is expected to create approximately 8,000 construction jobs and 600 full-time operations jobs, the companies said. Construction is expected to wrap up in 2032.
The companies said the project fulfills the Trump administration's Ratepayer Protection Pledge, meaning the data center's power infrastructure costs will not be passed on to existing residential or small-business electricity customers. The power service arrangement will also require additional oversight and approval from the Kentucky Public Service Commission.
"The Department of Energy Paducah Site will be the seed of our plan to invest $100 billion in AI infrastructure," Brookfield CEO Bruce Flatt said in a statement.
NextEra Energy Chairman, President and CEO John Ketchum said in a statement that the data center "will bring its own power, pay for its own power infrastructure and create good-paying jobs for local workers."
The DOE selected Brookfield to lease and develop the site following a Request for Offers issued in November 2025, and separately selected NextEra Energy to build the dedicated generation resources, the companies said. The project remains subject to the negotiation and execution of definitive documentation.
The Paducah Site already has transmission capacity, water infrastructure, fiber connectivity, and road access from its previous operations, which the companies said will accelerate the development timeline.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright called the project a "crucial roadmap for future projects in the United States" in a statement.
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