The US government just decided that a Cold War-era nuclear weapons site in South Carolina is the perfect place for a massive data center.
The National Nuclear Security Administration announced on July 21 that Amentum, a private engineering and construction firm, will develop a 1 gigawatt data center at the Savannah River Site, along with 2 GW of additional on-site energy generation. To put that in perspective, 1 GW is roughly enough to power 750,000 homes, or in data center terms, enough juice to run one of the largest computing facilities on the planet.
What’s actually happening here
The Savannah River Site sits in southwest South Carolina on federally secured land that has been under Department of Energy control since the 1950s. It originally existed to produce nuclear materials during the arms race. Now it’s getting a second life as an AI computing hub.
The energy plan is a two-phase approach. Initial power generation will run on natural gas. The longer-term vision involves transitioning to nuclear power.
