By admin 
The federal government will partner with a private company to build a large data center and corresponding energy generation at the Savannah River Site, the National Nuclear Security Administration announced in a news release Monday.
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The U.S. Department of Energy chose Amentum, a private engineering company, to build a one gigawatt data center and two gigawatts of “on-site energy” at the federal site in southwest South Carolina. The generation will be natural gas “bridging to nuclear energy,” according to a news release.
“This proposed partnership represents an opportunity to strengthen America’s leadership in artificial intelligence, expand reliable energy generation, and strengthen our national security,” said Brandon Williams, a National Nuclear Security Administration administrator, in a news release.
A final lease agreement has not yet been struck for the project. .
“Amentum was selected to enter negotiations for a phased lease and is expected to work with partners to develop the data center and on-site energy generation,” a National Nuclear Security spokesperson said in an email.
The data center will likely be one of the largest in South Carolina. More than 20 data centers, the physical infrastructure needed to power AI and other digital services, have been built or are planned in the state.
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Some South Carolina residents have pushed back against hosting the AI infrastructure in their community, and several counties have considered or passed moratoriums on data center development.
The goal of the Savannah River Site project is to build out new data center infrastructure without costing utility ratepayers, according to the news release.
A timeline for the project, including when the generation will transition from natural gas to nuclear, is not yet known, according to a spokesperson. The “end user” of the data center has also not been determined, and the chosen developer will pay for the project.
The Savannah River Site was one of four federal locations selected last summer to help develop a data center. The Department of Energy also the Idaho National Laboratory, Oak Ridge Reservation and Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. There were initially 16 sites under consideration for the project, according to an April request for information
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