Brookfield and NextEra join $100B Kentucky AI hub at nuclear site

The U.S. Department of Energy announced a private investment initiative valued at $100 billion to redevelop the former uranium-enrichment site in Paducah, Western Kentucky. Brookfield and NextEra are named among the companies in a private-sector coalition that would build an artificial-intelligence and high-performance-computing campus there, under Energy Secretary Chris Wright.

The site’s history as a Cold War uranium-enrichment facility gives the project an existing industrial setting, while the planned campus points to the growing overlap between electricity infrastructure and AI computing demand. The announcement frames the effort as one of the largest economic-development projects in Kentucky’s history.

For Brookfield, the connection is through its role in the coalition and the potential for infrastructure investment spanning power and digital assets. NextEra is tied to the energy side of the proposed hub, where generation and grid capacity would be needed to support high-performance computing. The project’s size also places the Department of Energy and the state-level redevelopment effort alongside the private participants.

The initiative remains a development plan rather than an operating campus. Its ultimate scale, construction timetable, financing structure, power mix and commercial commitments are still open questions.

The next milestones are expected to be project approvals, definitive private-sector agreements and construction decisions. Evidence of signed contracts, committed capital and a dated buildout schedule would clarify how much of the $100 billion represents immediately funded investment rather than the planned value of the broader hub.