Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is Considering the Development of an AI-focused Data Center to Support Department of Energy Research into Large Language Models

The US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has issued a request for information (RFI) for an “on-premises next-generation AI compute data center.”

The proposed facility would be funded and operated by the DOE itself, separate from a broader initiative that would allow private operators to develop AI data centers on federal land, including at PNNL’s campus in Richland, Washington.

In a previously unreported RFI, PNNL contractor Battelle said that it was seeking to understand the data center requirements for "an advanced AI compute infrastructure capable of training and operationalization of multi-data Large Language Models (LLMs) for scientific and national governmental missions."

The system would be around 2MW at launch in 2028, with potential future expansion to ~40MW. It is expected to be capable of supporting training and inference workloads.