The US Department of Energy (DOE) has issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) calling for companies to build and manage a data center at the Savannah River Site, South Carolina.

Savannah River Site was established in the early 1950s to produce materials – primarily tritium and plutonium-239 – used in nuclear weapons.

The RFP, posted on sam.gov yesterday, calls for an entity to enter into a lease agreement with the Department of Energy in order to design, construct, install, maintain, and operate an “AI data center and energy generation infrastructure.”

Any project “must include new energy generation.”

There are ten tracts of land potentially capable of supporting a data center and/or power generation facilities, with the size of the data center ranging between 250 and 450 acres.

In terms of power, the site currently has access to several 115kV lines and a 20MW DOE-owned biomass combined cycle plant. Two commercially-owned 75MW solar power generation facilities with BESS are currently in development, with operations scheduled for 2029.

Offers are due by December 5, 2025.

The push to use federal lands for data centers and power generation forms part of the country’s national AI strategy. Just two days ago, the DOE launched a similar RFP for a data center to be built in the 33,508-acre Oak Ridge Reservation, and both the Savannah River Site and Oak Ridge Reservation were included amongst a list of 16 possible sites for the development of data centers published by the DOE in April as part of a Request for Information (RFI).

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, opening up federal lands for data center development, making government-owned lands available to developers for lease, and requiring 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 encourages “energy exploration and production on Federal lands and waters.”

In July, Trump revoked EO 14141, replacing it with EO 14318 titled “Accelerating Federal Permitting of Data Center Infrastructure.” This removes several regulatory obligations imposed by Biden’s EO, provides financial support for data center projects requiring more than 100MW of electrical load, and streamlines planning and permitting reviews.