Pentagon’s real estate mission: Leasing land for data centers

The United States Army and Air Force are moving to lease out underused base land, so far in Texas, Utah and Alaska, to private developers to build and run data centers expected to support artificial intelligence and military applications.

The effort follows an executive order President Donald Trump issued last summer directing the Defense, Interior and Energy departments to identify federal sites, streamline environmental reviews and competitively lease out land for projects with 100 megawatts or more of capacity. That's roughly the power equivalent needed to run at least 100,000 households.

The policy effectively positions federal land as a new supply channel for large-scale data center development, aiming to bypass land constraints and entitlement friction that slow projects in established hubs. The initiative could open up thousands of acres of government land, though the proposed deal structures introduce underwriting and operational issues that differ from traditional commercial real estate transactions...

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RSK: Almost sounds like a win-win......but you can bet the NIMBY's and environmentalists will try to make a case against it.