The federal government is encouraging tribes to partner with data centers. That could mean leasing land or selling power.
The latter is where the big bucks come in, according to Ken Ahmann, the chief operating officer of Colusa Indian Energy, which provides on-site energy infrastructure to data centers on tribal land.
“This has the ability to inject potentially billions of dollars into the coffers of tribes,” Ahmann said at a Feb. 12 U.S. Department of Energy webinar, entitled “Beyond Land Leases: Harnessing Data Centers for Tribal Economic Development.”
Elisah VandenBussche with the department’s Indian Energy Policy and Programs office said the Trump administration sees data centers as a big opportunity. It is using federal land to power the global AI race and build data centers, including at Idaho National Laboratory.
And now, the government is offering financial and technical assistance to tribes interested in partnerships. The webinar featured speakers such as Ahmann with experience with these kinds of partnerships.
But VandenBussche said the office knows data centers aren’t the right fit for all tribes.
“So we want you to come away feeling like you have some tools or next steps to inform your own decisions for your tribe,” VandenBussche said.
Ahmann said these partnerships can be good for tribes that have land and resources to power big projects, such as the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. Paul Bemore, the chair of the tribe’s utility authority board, attended the webinar. He told the Mountain West News Bureau that he sees data centers as a way to help tribes diversify their economies.
“Tribes that are casino-dependent really need to look at other ways to build their economies, and I think data centers are one of those opportunities,” Bemore said.
Supporters of these partnerships say data center developers can help tribes build out — and pay for — their own energy infrastructure and expand internet access. Bemore said this can also help boost data sovereignty.
“A tribe could benefit from owning their own data and being able to tell our own story, so to speak, and being able to archive so much information that we have,” he said. ”Just that ability to manage your own data and not really be relying on a cloud somewhere. Have your own tribal cloud.”
However, Bemore said some people may be wary about how this will impact tribal sovereignty.
Ahmann told him in the webinar that data center developers are often opposed to respecting tribal sovereignty, but he said they can be convinced of the benefits of operating on Indigenous land without requiring sovereignty waivers.
For example, he said tribes can often permit projects more quickly than other state or municipal governments, and tribes can bypass certain state clean energy regulations.
“So where maybe you can't develop a large natural gas-fired system in California at the gigawatt scale, you can on trust land,” Ahmann said, adding that all of his company’s projects still meet “the strictest air quality standards on Earth.”
Many tribal members are worried about the impact data centers have on the environment, as many rely on natural gas and coal. The federal government has long sought to take advantage of resources on tribal lands, often violating treaties and tribal sovereignty.
The Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, which has about 1,300 members living on the reservation near Reno, Nev., has told the Mountain West News Bureau that it’s concerned about data centers draining precious water supplies.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Northern Colorado, KANW in New Mexico, Colorado Public Radio, KJZZ in Arizona and NPR, with additional support from affiliate newsrooms across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
