Data Center Registry

Oak Ridge Reservation AI Data Center Sites (DOE land lease)

Oak Ridge, Roane County, Tennessee

ProposedNo reception on recordAI confirmedRecord updated September 9, 2026

Oak Ridge Reservation AI Data Center Sites (DOE land lease) is a proposed data center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee (Roane County), operated by U.S. Department of Energy. The public record puts it at announced September 2025.

Every line on this page traces to a public source listed at the bottom. Where a figure was looked for and not found, the row says so. A blank is never a zero.

Facility record

Proposed

Operator: U.S. Department of Energy
Facility type: Data center, AI use confirmed
Location: Oak Ridge, Roane County, TN
Coordinates: 35.9353, -84.3924 (representative_multi_site)
Power capacity: Not established from a public source
Land: Not established from a public source
Investment: Not established from a public source
Announced: September 2025
Utility: Not established from a public source
Cooling: Not established from a public source
Water use: Not established from a public source
Jobs: Not established from a public source
Public subsidy: Not established from a public source
Community reception: No reception on record
Source confidence: Confirmed by multiple independent sources or official documentation

Opposition and litigation at this site

Nothing on record as of September 9, 2026. No lawsuit, organized opposition, or contested hearing over Oak Ridge Reservation AI Data Center Sites (DOE land lease) in Oak Ridge, Roane County, Tennessee appears in the sources this registry tracks. That is an absence in our sources rather than a finding that none exists, and local opposition often predates any coverage a national dataset would pick up.

If you live near this site and something is happening that this page does not show, that is worth telling us. Send us the document and it goes in the record with the source attached. For sites where opposition is already established, see every contested site we track.

Notes on the record

DOE's Offices of Environmental Management and Science issued a Request for Proposal on 2025-09-30 (published the week of 2025-10-13 per FedScoop) seeking U.S. companies to build, own and operate AI data centers and/or energy generation on the Oak Ridge Reservation under one or more long-term ground leases funded entirely by the lessee. TWO SITES are named in the DOE release: one at the East Tennessee Technology Park and one on land adjacent to Oak Ridge National Laboratory. This is recorded as a single record with the pin at a representative point for a multi-site project, geocoded to the East Tennessee Technology Park, because DOE names two sites but publishes no design, footprint, or capacity for either; splitting it would duplicate a record with no site-specific facts. ORNL itself geocodes to 35.9301332, -84.3119307. Confirmed absences as of 2026-09-09: no lessee has been selected, no capacity, investment, footprint or timeline is stated, and applicants, not DOE, are responsible for securing utility interconnection agreements and all permitting. The operator field records DOE as the landowner and solicitor, NOT as the eventual data-center operator, which is unknown. Oak Ridge is one of four federal sites DOE identified for AI infrastructure. Distinct from Kairos Power Hermes 2 (tracked separately as of September 2026), which is a separate NRC-licensed reactor project at Oak Ridge.

What the record does not establish, and the document that would

In every fight on our tracker the decisive fact came out of a public records request. These are the requests for this site.

Power capacity in megawatts
Cooling method and water use
Tax abatements or other public subsidy
Permanent jobs promised
Land area
How the community has received it
Which utility serves it

Which document closes each gap

Power capacity in megawatts: The utility's large load service agreement, the interconnection request in the grid operator's queue, or the electrical site plan in the permit file.
Cooling method and water use: The water service agreement, any groundwater appropriation permit, and the mechanical narrative in the site plan.
Tax abatements or other public subsidy: The abatement, PILOT, or development agreement approved by the county, city, or development authority, and the state's data center sales tax exemption certificate if one was issued.
Permanent jobs promised: The economic development application or incentive agreement, which usually states a job commitment and a clawback.
Land area: The rezoning application, the plat, or the deed recorded with the county.
How the community has received it: Planning commission and governing body minutes, public comment records, and any petition or lawsuit filed in the county.
Which utility serves it: The electric service agreement or the utility's filing with the state public utility commission.

Have one of these documents? Send it to us and we will add it to the record with attribution.

Other sites within 30 miles

Distances are between recorded coordinates, many of which are a city or county centroid, so treat them as approximate. Cumulative load on one utility and one aquifer is the question a planning commission rarely asks.

Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (Frontier supercomputer) · Oak Ridge · Oak Ridge National Laboratory (UT-Battelle for the U.S. Department of Energy)5 mi · Operating
LCUB Data Center (Lenoir City Utilities Board) · Lenoir City · Lenoir City Utilities Board10 mi · Operating
CleanSpark Lenoir City Bitcoin Mining Facility · Lenoir City · CleanSpark, Inc.12 mi · Operating · 40 MW
DarkHorse Technologies (Cathedra Bitcoin) Rockwood Data Center · Rockwood · DarkHorse Technologies Inc. (formerly Sphere 3D Corp.; site from Cathedra Bitcoin)17 mi · Operating · 10 MW
The Fort (TenHats Knoxville Data Center) · Knoxville · TenHats (formerly SH Data Technologies)27 mi · Operating

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Questions people ask about this site

Is there opposition to the Oak Ridge Reservation AI Data Center Sites (DOE land lease) in Oak Ridge?

Has anyone filed a lawsuit over the Oak Ridge Reservation AI Data Center Sites (DOE land lease)?

No lawsuit over Oak Ridge Reservation AI Data Center Sites (DOE land lease) appears in the record we track as of September 9, 2026. Residents most often reach a lawyer over water supply, well drawdown, noise from cooling plant, property value, or a rezoning approved without the notice the ordinance required. If any of that is happening near this site, it is worth a review whether or not a case has been filed yet.

How much water does Oak Ridge Reservation AI Data Center Sites (DOE land lease) use?

No water withdrawal figure for Oak Ridge Reservation AI Data Center Sites (DOE land lease) is on record here. Water use is rarely published voluntarily; it usually surfaces through a utility service agreement or a state withdrawal permit, both of which are public records. We leave the number blank rather than estimate one.

Who operates Oak Ridge Reservation AI Data Center Sites (DOE land lease), and how big is it?

U.S. Department of Energy is the operator on record. No capacity figure is on record for this site.

How to cite this page

SueDataCenters.org Data Center Registry, "Oak Ridge Reservation AI Data Center Sites (DOE land lease)," updated September 9, 2026, https://suedatacenters.org/data-centers/doe-oak-ridge-reservation-ai-data-centers-tn.

Facility data from Compute Atlas (E. Kubiak), version 1.34.1 (October 4, 2026), licensed CC BY 4.0, record https://www.compute-atlas.com/facilities/doe-oak-ridge-reservation-ai-data-centers-tn, retrieved October 29, 2026.

Corrections with a public source are welcome at the Compute Atlas record or through our contact page. The whole registry is available as CSV and JSON under CC BY 4.0.

Sources for this record

As compiled and cited by Compute Atlas, with our own reporting appended. Archived links are used where the original has moved.

1.U.S. Energy Department Seeks Proposals for AI Data Centers, Energy Projects at Oak Ridge · U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Environmental Management · retrieved September 9, 2026
2.Energy seeks proposals for AI data centers at Oak Ridge · FedScoop · retrieved September 9, 2026

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