Air Force offers Alaskan land

The Department of the Air Force is offering about 4,700 acres on three Alaska installations for companies to build artificial intelligence data centers. (af.mil) The land is spread across Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson near Anchorage, Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks, and Clear Space Force Station south of Nenana. The service said April 10 that it had released a formal Request for Lease Proposal on SAM.gov. (af.mil; datacenterdynamics.com) The Air Force has identified 12 parcels for possible development and said the winning developer would handle financing, permitting, construction, and long-term operations. It scheduled a virtual industry day for April 23, followed by site visits on April 28 at Elmendorf-Richardson, April 29 at Clear, and April 30 at Eielson. (af.mil) A data center is a warehouse-sized building filled with chips, servers, and cooling gear that trains and runs artificial intelligence systems. The Air Force said these Alaska projects could also include power equipment, battery and fuel storage, fiber links, and water-efficient cooling systems. (openai.com; af.mil) The Alaska solicitation turns a February market test into a live competition. In February, the department asked companies whether they were interested; on April 10, it moved to a lease proposal that invites formal bids. (af.mil; af.mil) The project sits inside a wider federal push to put artificial intelligence infrastructure on government land. The Department of Energy said in April 2025 that it had identified 16 federal sites for data centers and associated energy projects, with a goal of getting some facilities operating by the end of 2027. (energy.gov; gain.inl.gov) The military has already started making similar deals elsewhere. On March 26, the Army said it had conditionally selected companies for exclusive negotiations on commercial hyperscale data centers at Fort Bliss in Texas and Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. (army.mil; airandspaceforces.com) The Air Force also expanded beyond Alaska before this announcement. In October 2025, it said it was seeking proposals to lease land for artificial intelligence data centers at Arnold Air Force Base, Edwards Air Force Base, Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, and Robins Air Force Base. (airandspaceforces.com) Robert Moriarty, the deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for Installations, said the Alaska plan is meant to create a “public-private partnership” that returns at least fair-market-value cash to the service. For now, the next test is whether data center developers show up on April 23 and then bid on the 12 Alaska parcels. (af.mil)