Arnold Air Force Base Data Center, Manchester, Tennessee

The AI data center the Air Force offered to host at Arnold Air Force Base, near Manchester in Coffee County, Tennessee, has been cancelled. In a June 1, 2026 statement, the base said the Air Force Civil Engineering Center told local leadership that no developers would submit proposals for the land under the Enhanced Use Lease program for AI data centers, after the May 29 deadline passed.

The Air Force had offered 274 acres at Arnold as one of five bases, along with Edwards in California, Davis-Monthan in Arizona, Robins in Georgia and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey, in response to executive orders President Trump issued in 2025. A qualifying project needed more than 100 megawatts of new load and at least $500 million in investment, with leases of up to 50 years, and companies had to pay fair market value for the land plus $250,000 to the government. "AI is transforming the modern world, and these data centers are crucial for America to remain at the forefront of innovation," said Robert Moriarty, the Air Force's deputy assistant secretary for installations.

The plan drew doubts from the start: Stacie Pettyjohn of the Center for a New American Security said she had never heard of public land being leased to private companies this way, and raised the risk of espionage and sabotage. In Coffee County, the local Democratic Party launched a petition days before the announcement, saying: "We are not asking for the impossible. We are asking that it be done the right way, or not at all." Because the base is federal land, the decision rested with the Air Force, and with no proposals submitted there is nothing pending for Arnold.