WASHINGTON — In an unusual move to boost President Donald Trump’s ambitious AI agenda, the Air Force is now offering to lease federal land to private companies seeking to build high-powered data centers.
This use of federal land was envisaged in Trump’s Executive Order 14318, issued in July, which set out to speed up federal permitting for new AI data centers. But the Air Force announcement is the first concrete step towards that effort by the Defense Department.
Two-thirds of the land for lease is at the massive Edwards Air Force Base complex in California, the service’s largest installation by land area and an Air Force Materiel Command outpost. All told, the Request For Lease Proposal (RFLP), issued Oct. 15 and added to on Oct. 21, makes available 3,101 acres of “underutilized” federal land at five active Air Force bases across the country:
- 2,115 acres, divided amongst seven sites, at Edwards AFB;
- 300 acres at Davis-Monthan AFB in Arizona;
- 274 acres at Arnold AFB in Tennessee;
- 219 acres at Robins AFB in Georgia; and
- 193 acres at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey.
Proposals are due Nov. 14 and must offer at least “fair market value” for the land, as required by federal law, as well as a one-time payment estimated at $250,000 to cover the government’s administrative expenses, the RFLP says. Bidders must show both strong financial backing and a track record of data center construction, with “at least three completed AI data center projects drawing over 100 MW [megawatts] of new contracted power that the Offeror has developed within the last 3 years.”
The new project must itself draw at least 100 megawatts of power “dedicated to AI inference, training, simulation, or synthetic data generation.” But it need not have any direct connection to national defense to count as a “qualifying project” under the executive order.
“The DAF [Department of the Air Force] selected these installations based on market analysis, infrastructure availability, and strategic importance,” said a press release that was not officially published due to the government shutdown, but was made available to Breaking Defense. “The DAF may consider other opportunities in the future.”
The service expects to select winning proposals in January.
Trump has taken a personal interest in artificial intelligence. Just days after his inauguration, he held a White House press conference with OpenAI to announce the company’s $500 billion Stargate plan to build AI infrastructure. In July, the White House announced an ambitious AI Action Plan that gave broad-brush objectives to multiple federal agencies in what it framed as “a race to achieve global dominance in artificial intelligence” against China.