Riot 1 data center, Paducah, Kentucky

Riot Platforms operates a Bitcoin mining data center at 5600 Commerce Drive in McCracken County's Industrial Park West, just outside Paducah, Kentucky, one of two Kentucky sites it gained in 2024 by buying Block Mining Inc. for $92.5 million. The two sites together had 60 megawatts of operating capacity at the time of the sale, with room to grow to 110 megawatts and, with a planned third site, past 300 megawatts, Riot said.

In May 2026 Riot named the Paducah operation among the sites where it may pair a future data center with a small nuclear reactor from Terrestrial Energy, though WKMS reported it as Riot's only existing Kentucky facility and no timeline for a reactor has been released. Riot's operation runs on grid power under two power purchase agreements CEO Jason Les signed this year with Jackson Purchase Energy Corporation, extending through 2043.

Les said in a release that Riot's data centers "require reliable and predictable energy at the scale demanded by today's hyperscale customers." Greater Paducah Economic Development, which has backed Block Mining since it opened in 2021, called the 2024 sale "a testament to the strength of our community."

Much bigger plans are moving nearby. In July 2026 the Department of Energy announced a 1.8-gigawatt hyperscale data center campus at the former Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, a Superfund site, with Brookfield developing it and NextEra Energy adding two gigawatts of gas fired power. Two nuclear fuel startups, General Matter and Global Laser Enrichment, are also planning operations near the DOE site.

Residents in a group called Protect McCracken County want an independent environmental study of all the projects. "Our biggest concern with all of these projects is that you're doing it on a Superfund site," said Erica Moore, who helped start the group. Paducah Mayor George Bray, running for McCracken County judge-executive, has said residents can be protected through local regulation, though for the DOE site "the Department of Energy is leasing the land and choosing the partners."