The relentless expansion of artificial intelligence has created an insatiable appetite for the vast, power-hungry data centers that form its backbone, pushing the industry to seek out unconventional locations for its next phase of growth. In a strategic maneuver to address this national infrastructure demand, the U.S. Department of Defense has extended an unusual invitation to the private sector: the opportunity to develop AI facilities on unused lands within active military bases. This initiative, part of a broader federal push to leverage government assets, presents a compelling yet complex proposition. It unlocks thousands of acres of property with access to high-capacity power grids, a critical and often prohibitive hurdle for new data center construction. However, this offer is deeply entangled with a web of significant environmental challenges, infrastructural shortcomings, and unsettling historical safety risks that could transform these promising sites into logistical and financial quagmires for any developer bold enough to proceed.
A Double-Edged Sword of Opportunity
The Promise of Power and Space
At first glance, the DoD’s proposal appears to be a landmark opportunity for the AI sector, offering a direct solution to the two most pressing constraints on data center development: land and power. The request for proposals identifies four sprawling military installations—Fort Hood and Fort Bliss in Texas, Fort Bragg in North Carolina, and Dugway Proving Ground in Utah—making available parcels that range from a sizable 78 acres to an immense 3,400 acres. For an industry where scale is paramount, such large, contiguous tracts of land are increasingly rare and valuable. The most significant advantage, however, lies beneath the surface in the form of robust utility infrastructure. Each of these locations is already connected to high-voltage power transmission lines managed by major regional providers, including ONCOR, Duke Energy, El Paso Electric, and Rocky Mountain Power. This pre-existing access to the electrical grid represents a monumental benefit, allowing developers to bypass what is often years of planning, negotiation, and construction required to bring sufficient power to a new site, potentially saving hundreds of millions of dollars and dramatically accelerating project timelines.
Despite the powerful allure of available land and electricity, a closer examination of the proposal reveals critical infrastructure gaps that significantly complicate the development picture. While high-voltage power is accessible, other essential utilities for data center operations are either inconsistent or entirely uncertain. High-speed data connectivity, the very lifeblood of a data center, presents a major variable. Some of the offered parcels are conveniently located near major fiber optic routes that run along interstate highways, but others are not. The site at Dugway Proving Ground, for instance, is approximately 35 miles away from the nearest major fiber lines, a substantial distance that would require a massive private investment in trenching and installation to bridge. Similarly, while natural gas pipelines are noted to be in the vicinity of most locations, a crucial detail—their available capacity—is consistently marked as “unknown” in the procurement documents. This ambiguity introduces a significant risk, as developers cannot be certain if the existing pipelines can support the energy demands of a large-scale facility without costly upgrades, turning a seeming convenience into a potential roadblock.
Navigating Critical Resource Scarcity
Perhaps the most formidable obstacle presented by the DoD’s land offer is the pervasive issue of water scarcity, a critical resource for cooling the massive server arrays that power modern AI. The environmental data included in the proposals paints a stark picture of the challenges ahead. Both Fort Hood in Texas and Fort Bragg in North Carolina are situated in regions designated with a ‘High’ water risk, indicating that local supplies are already under significant strain. The situation is even more dire at Fort Bliss, located near the arid environment of El Paso, Texas, which faces an ‘Extremely High’ water risk. Building a water-intensive data center in such locations would not only present extreme operational challenges and potentially exorbitant costs but also risk significant public and regulatory opposition from communities struggling to manage their own limited water resources. In stark contrast, only Dugway Proving Ground in Utah is rated as having a ‘Low-Medium’ water risk, making it the sole location where water availability is not an immediate and critical concern. This singular advantage, however, is shadowed by the site’s own unique and deeply troubling history, forcing a difficult trade-off for potential developers.
Unearthing Past Dangers and Future Liabilities
Environmental and Historical Hazards
Beyond the immediate concerns of infrastructure and resource availability, any development on these military lands must contend with a landscape shaped by decades of defense activities, introducing a host of environmental and historical liabilities. Developers would face the standard set of potential obstacles common to large federal land projects, including the possible presence of endangered species or the discovery of protected archaeological sites, either of which could trigger lengthy reviews and potentially halt construction indefinitely. However, these locations carry unique risks tied directly to their military past. At Fort Bliss, for example, the documentation notes that portions of the available land may have been used as firing ranges prior to the 1970s. This raises the serious and dangerous possibility of unexploded ordnance (UXO) remaining buried on the site. The potential presence of live munitions necessitates extensive and costly surveys and remediation efforts before any groundbreaking can occur, adding a significant layer of physical risk, financial uncertainty, and project delays that could easily derail an otherwise viable development plan.
The Shadow of Chemical and Biological Testing
The most alarming risks are concentrated at Dugway Proving Ground, a site whose favorable water profile is completely overshadowed by its primary function as the military’s main testing facility for chemical and biological weapons. While the DoD’s proposal specifies that the offered parcels were historically used for grazing, the proximity to hazardous testing areas is deeply concerning. One of the land parcels is located a mere 3.5 miles from a former toxin testing grid, a detail that raises questions about potential downwind contamination over the years. The base’s history is marred by documented incidents of chemical agent leaks, most notoriously the 1968 event where a nerve agent release during an open-air test was responsible for the deaths of over 6,000 sheep in the surrounding valleys. This history of containment failure introduces a profound and potentially unquantifiable risk of latent ground or water contamination. For any developer, the task of conducting the necessary due diligence to ensure the site is unequivocally safe for construction and long-term operation would be a monumental undertaking, weighing the site’s resource advantages against a legacy of some of the nation’s most dangerous military experiments.
A Calculated Risk for an Eager Industry
In the end, the Department of Defense’s proposal to lease military land for AI data centers crystallized a pivotal moment for the technology industry. The offer laid bare a fundamental tension between the urgent need for expansion and the complex, often hidden, risks associated with developing on historically sensitive sites. The promise of vast, power-ready acreage provided a powerful incentive, yet this opportunity was inextricably linked to daunting challenges, from severe water shortages to the potential for unearthing unexploded ordnance and chemical contaminants. This initiative served as a crucial test case, compelling developers to perform a difficult calculus weighing immediate logistical advantages against profound long-term liabilities. The proposal ultimately underscored a broader reality: the search for a suitable foundation for the future of AI had led the industry to confront a legacy far more complicated than that of an empty field.