BLM Reviews 17 Data Center Projects on Public Land
The Bureau of Land Management is considering proposals to build massive data center campuses across the United States.
Updated on Oct. 20, 2026 in Data Centers
Live Poll
Do you support the use of public lands for private data center development?
The Bureau of Land Management is currently reviewing 17 applications to construct data center projects on public land. These proposals include expansive developments in Idaho and Oregon designed to meet growing AI-compute demands.
Why it matters
The evaluation of these sites highlights the increasing competition for public land as developers search for space to build the infrastructure necessary for modern artificial intelligence capabilities.
The proposed projects vary significantly in scale, including a 106-acre Charleston Data Center near Umatilla, Oregon, and the massive 3,013-acre Falcon Data Center straddling the Lincoln and Jerome County line in Idaho.
The players
Bureau of Land Management
This federal agency manages more than 245 million acres of public land in the United States.
Copia Digital, LLC
This company is a developer that has filed multiple applications for data center projects on public land.
Rhea Data LLC
This developer is responsible for a proposed data center project located in Boise, Idaho.
The details
The review includes a project in Boise, Idaho, proposed by Rhea Data LLC, which is currently sited on land occupied by the Boise Area Radio Kontrol Society. Developers like Copia Digital, LLC are seeking to utilize these public plots to expand AI-compute capacity.
Timeline
October 20, 2026: Bureau of Land Management application review news published.
The Tech Race
The move to secure large swaths of federal land for data centers represents a significant shift from traditional industrial use toward AI-scale infrastructure. This race for space reflects the intense competitive demand for the high-power facilities needed to sustain modern AI development.
While these projects aim to provide the computing power required for AI services, the development of these sites on public land could alter local land use and community access to designated areas. Readers should watch for public comment periods as the agency determines the future of these specific plots.
The takeaway
The surge in data center applications underscores how rapidly the demand for AI infrastructure is shaping land-use policy across the country. Developers and regulators are now balancing the necessity for tech expansion with the management of federal public lands.
Further reading
Learn more about the infrastructure behind modern computing on our Data Centers page.
Live Poll
Do you support the use of public lands for private data center development?
