ARLINGTON, VA – Proposals are being assessed for contractors looking to build and power artificial intelligence (AI) data centers at the De[artment of Energy’s Savannah River Site, the site’s field manager said in a panel on a snowy first day of Exchange Monitor’s Nuclear Deterrence Summit.
In September 2025, DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) published a request for proposals, or RFP, from “entities interested in entering a long-term lease” at the Savannah River Site in Aiken, S.C. The RFP closed Dec. 5, and Michael Mikolanis, field office manager at Savannah River, said Monday the Department of Energy is currently assessing proposals from potential contractors.
When asked for a timeline on the proposal request, an NNSA spokesperson told the Exchange Monitor in an email that “NNSA does not share timelines for contract awards,” and the award will be announced when the evaluation process is complete.
The solicitation, seen on the government procurement site sam.gov., is part of the Donald Trump administration’s effort to quickly deploy and develop energy projects and AI data centers to skyrocket the U.S. position on the leaderboard for global energy, NNSA has said. The solicitation also aligns with the president’s executive orders Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence and Unleashing American Energy, the procurement notice said.
Savannah River Site is one of four sites DOE identified for AI infrastructure projects on government land. DOE released a request for information in April for information on possibly using 16 DOE sites for rapidly building data centers.