New Interactive Map Tracks Data Center Applications in the West

By Kate Groetzinger

The Bureau of Land Management appears to be considering at least 17 applications to build data center campuses on public land in the West, according to a new interactive map from the Center for Western Priorities. Our BLM Data Center Tracker, built from the agency’s own land records, also identifies at least 13 likely applications for infrastructure to support AI data centers, including access roads, water pipelines, telecom lines, and transmission lines.

Altogether, the map shows 35 active data center-related applications covering more than 24,000 acres in Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming. Last month, press reports and a congressional letter put the number at roughly 12 proposals over 17,600 acres.

What the map shows
Of the 35 active cases on the map, it appears 17 are applications for a data center campus, identifiable by “Data Center,” “Gigasite,” or “Project” in the case name. Because some of these cases seem to be colocated the 17 applications may represent fewer distinct projects. Another 13 applications appear to be for supporting infrastructure, and five cannot be classified into either category based on publicly available information. The best way to use the map is to click into individual cases and read the text associated with the application.

Some of these proposals dwarf a typical data center. NPR reported that Valar Atomics’ Project Beehive in eastern Utah would cover more than 9,000 acres and be powered by small modular nuclear reactors, a technology that has not yet been deployed at commercial scale. A single developer, Copia, has filed 16 site and infrastructure proposals across five states, including an application associated with a 2,520-acre parcel near Las Vegas.

A rush with no rules
Unlike for solar, wind, drilling, or mining, there is no established permitting process for building data centers on public land. This absence hasn’t slowed the administration’s rush to build them, though. In June, BLM permitted a 167-megawatt data center near Boulder City, Nevada, without an environmental review. The Interior Board of Land Appeals halted the project in September after Boulder City and conservation groups challenged it. This week, a judge sent the project back for a proper environmental review.

On September 24, Representatives Jared Huffman, Dina Titus, and 13 other members of Congress sent Interior Secretary Doug Burgum 18 questions about data centers on public lands, including whether the public will be able to weigh in on these proposals. They asked for answers by October 8.

The public’s view on data centers is clear. In a July poll of likely Wyoming voters, more than 90 percent of respondents said data centers are not an acceptable use of public lands. Nationally, Pew Research Center found the share of Americans who say data centers are mostly bad for the environment rose from 39 percent in January to 54 percent in September.

The Center for Western Priorities released the following statement from Deputy Director Lauren Bogard:

“Data centers are not like oil, gas, or minerals, which are extracted from public lands because that’s where they exist. Unlike mining or drilling, there are no natural resources that make it necessary to develop data centers on public lands, and there is no reason to assume data centers belong on them.

“Before even considering putting data centers on public lands, the Trump administration should be obligated to solicit public feedback on this idea. None of these projects should move forward without a permitting framework that lets communities decide where, how, or if data centers get built. That process must include robust, site-specific environmental review and public input opportunities, as well as meaningful, negotiated community benefits that ensure the public is compensated when private companies profit from public lands.”

Methodology
Application (or case) data used to build the map comes from BLM’s Mineral & Land Records System, accessed through its public ArcGIS service across all four application statuses: pending, authorized, interim, and closed. Because BLM has no “data center” category for right-of-way cases, CWP runs two searches: one matching case and applicant names against terms such as “data,” “hyperscale,” “gigasite,” and “modular reactor,” and a second matching applicant names against developers confirmed to be active in the sector. The second search exists because early-stage cases are often filed with no name at all, under LLCs with names that give no hint of their purpose.

Each search returns roughly 300 raw hits, most of them false positives such as legacy radio licenses that use the acronym “SMR.” CWP’s pipeline reviews every hit against corporate records and press coverage. Parcel boundaries come directly from BLM’s survey data. The map is refreshed regularly and was last updated October 16.

This tracker provides a baseline count. An application with no name and an unidentified applicant won’t appear in this count, so the real number of data center-related applications received by BLM may be higher than this map shows. BLM often records zero acres for early-stage applications, so the map likely also undercounts acreage. Finally, a right-of-way application (which all of these are) is a request, not an approval, and pending cases may be withdrawn by the developer or denied by BLM.

Note: The public-facing API used to pull this data from BLM’s Mineral & Land Records System is unavailable as of October 20 at 10am MDT. The map reflects BLM data as of October 16, 2026, and CWP will refresh it (if possible) once the system is back online.

Data and full methodology: https://github.com/Center-for-Western-Priorities/blm-data-centers

Kate Groetzinger is Communications Director with the Center for Western Priorities.