The US Department of the Air Force (DAF) is accepting proposals for AI data centers in military bases.

On October 15, the DAF published a Request for Proposal (RFP) calling for “qualified entities interested in leasing from the Government one or more underutilized parcels of land for private commercial data use” on five Air Force bases.

Fifteen land parcels are available for lease.

These include: a 122-acre and a 152-acre site in Arnold Air Force Base, Tennessee; seven sites ranging between 100 and 560 acres at Edwards Air Force Base, California; a 73-acre and a 120-acre site Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey; a 300-acre site at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona; and three sites ranging between 30 and 135 acres at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia.

The government previously published a Request for Information (RFI) in March to gauge commercial interest in a data center development at the David-Monthan Air Base, but the RFI referred to a different 620-acre parcel than the one listed in the RFP.

As set out by President Trump’s Executive Order (EO) 14318, titled “Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure,” the data center must require at least $500 million in capital expenditure and offer more than 100MW in capacity.

Offers are due by 6:00pm EST, November 14.

The push to use federal lands for data centers and power generation forms part of the US’ national AI strategy.

On October 2, the Department of Energy (DOE) issued an RFP calling for companies to build and manage a data center at the Savannah River Site, a former nuclear materials facility in South Carolina. Two days before that, the DOE issued another RFP for a data center to be built in the 33,508-acre Oak Ridge Reservation.

This policy traces back to former US President Joe Biden. Biden signed Executive Order (EO) 14141 with less than a week left in his term, which opened up federal lands for data center development, made government-owned lands available to developers for lease, and required agencies to make efforts to improve transmission infrastructure.

Nine days later, President Donald Trump signed two EOs, titled “Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence” (EO 14179) and “Unleashing American Energy” (EO 14154), the latter of which encouraged “energy exploration and production on Federal lands and waters.”

Trump then introduced EO 14318 in July, revoking the Biden-era EO 14141. In addition to the aforementioned stipulations about capital expenditure and capacity, the EO also removed several regulatory obligations imposed by Biden’s EO and streamlined planning and permitting reviews.