Yves here. If this White House data center theory is correct, it represents the US explicitly emulating the hyper-militarized (and paranoid due to fully-earned hatred) Israel. In other words, it’s a piece of an expanding commitment to aggression.
Having said that, the US has long had command bunkers, and ones more serious than this one. If you visit the West Virginia resort, Greenbriar, it gives tours of its Cold War era nuclear-hardened government command center. It had barracks with two bunks for each Congresscritter. Each was allowed to bring one assistant. It even kept a current supply of medications for all senior government officials expected to be housed there (I must confess to not recalling who in the Administration beyond the President, Vice President, and Defense Secretary was entitled to its protection). And knowledgeable readers can correct me, but I am also under the impression that this nuclear hideout was not known to the general public at the time.
Now Neuburger is correct to suggest in the Trump era that this data center/hideout is indeed being built, security against an internal attack would be one design goal. But an old-fashioned nuclear bunker would serve that purpose too.
By Thomas Neuburger. Originally published at God’s Spies
“All of these grandiose ideas surrounding AI, all of that needs a home.”
Much has happened since the Season began, and there are many fronts to catch you up on. Let’s start with this — Donald Trump’s “ballroom.”
Is he building only a ballroom? I think not.
The Drey Dossier
The Drey Dossier is an investigative reporting project run by Audrey Henson (Audrey → “Drey”). This is my first exposure to Henson, though her YouTubechannel has 66,000 subscribers, her TikTok feed has roughly 135,000 followers, and her Substack is doing quite well at 59,000 subscribers. For a sense of her background, read her LinkedIn bio.
I can’t speak for the rest of her work, but regarding her ballroom analysis, I think she’s on solid ground. There’s meat on that bone.
The White House ‘Ballroom’ That Isn’t
For the full information she provides, watch the video below, or better, read the accompanying article at her Substack site.
About the ballroom project, I’ll leave you to listen and click to see the particulars. They are many:
- from contractor — Clark Construction, which lists classified data centers among their projects
- to architect — Shalom Baranes, the man who designed the Pentagon’s post-9/11 hardening project
- to power grid upgrades — she says Potomac Electric Power Company (PEPCO) is replacing 45-year-old power feeders and increasing power capacity in this area by five hundred percent (a statement I couldn’t verify)
- to water — DC Water’s spending increase by $300 million, plus PEPCO’s emergency request for a relocation of water infrastructure and large-scale waterline modifications near the East Wing
- to funding entities — for example, Carrier, which could be donating its brand-new Carrier Quantum Leap product, a “comprehensive suite of innovative, energy-efficient solutions for data center thermal management”. Other companies could be donating significant products as well: Caterpillar, which makes heavy industrial generators; high-tech and network entities like Palantir, Google, Booz Allen and Amazon; and Blackstone, which is heavily involved in large-scale power infrastructure in the DC area.
- to even the presence (she says) of caissons on the site, structures used for working deep underground
- and military design involvement per Trump, because national security.
Read the piece for the full detail. This is interesting work. Note the parallel to Jerusalem’s data center, which is the same size and cost as the White House “ballroom” — about 90,000 ft. sq. with a price north of $300 million. The Jerusalem facility is 160 feet underground. Let’s see the size of the hole Trump digs under his dance floor.
The What and the Why
This leads us to larger questions — the what and the why. Henson addresses the what (see below). For the why, we’re left to surmise.
For the what, I’ll quote from the end of the video (emphasis mine):
Okay, so what does any of this actually mean? Well, I think we should go back to the underground data centers in Jerusalem because understanding why Israel built those might tell us why Trump is building one here. Allegedly. Supposedly. In my opinion.
So, Israel built those facilities for something called Project Nimbus, which is their government cloud infrastructure. And we’ve seen what this looks like in practice, right? I mean, the AI system that Israel is using in Gaza, the targeting systems, the surveillance infrastructure, the operational decision-making, and that all runs on this underground data center network.
I mean, we’re talking full AI takeover, military operations, intelligence gathering, government AI, information systems like banking, critical infrastructure controls, everything that keeps the country running. And they put it nine stories underground because they needed it to survive. Not just survive a power outage or a cyber attack, but to survive a war. I mean, they needed it to survive missile strikes and keep running no matter what happens above the ground.
Because when you have your entire government running on AI systems, that is now the brain of your country. and you have to protect the brain of your country with a thick, thick skull.
That’s what data sovereignty looks like. That’s continuity of government. And that’s what AI warfare infrastructure actually looks like.
And then I’m looking at Project Stargate announced on January 21st, 2025, Trump’s first full day in office. And Larry Ellison is going on and on about this $500 billion AI infrastructure that’s going to save the government and cure cancer. But all of these grandiose ideas surrounding AI, all of that needs a home.
And that’s why I think it has to be at the White House specifically because when infrastructure is a part of the executive office of the president, then it has to be classified, protected, exempt from oversight and the president has to have direct access to it.
And lest we forget, the east wing sits directly above the presidential emergency operations center, the PEOC bunker. It’s five stories deep, staffed 24/7 by military offices. And by demolishing the entire east wing, they removed every structure blocking access to that bunker. And now they can expand it and go deeper or integrate new infrastructure if they’d like.
And because it’s at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, executive privilege covers all of it. I mean, think about it.
The president controls what gets disclosed and what doesn’t. I mean, this is what the government running on AI with all of that power consolidated under executive control in a facility that can survive anything and Congress can’t audit looks like.
And look, I’m sure they’ll build a ballroom on top. You know, they’ll host state dinners and take photos with world leaders and gowns and tuxedos, and maybe it’ll even look fabulous. But don’t kid yourself about what this was actually built for, because the ballroom isn’t the project. The ballroom is the lid.
So the “what” could be an AI data center capable of running the whole country — yes, the whole country — from an underground White House bunker that’s been hardened for war.
Protection From Whom?
But the “why” is a problem. I mean, why keep this a secret?
If Henson is right about what our rulers are doing, so what? If they’re doing it, China no doubt knows. And eventually all of the nations who hate us will know. And besides, you’d expect a responsible military — whose involvement Trump said is real — to consider this kind of construction part of its job.
So why keep this building a secret from the American people, if that’s what it is? Alex Karp fear and aggression? An excess of secrecy? Or something far worse?
Ask: What would a massive Palantir-fueled data center do, one that was hooked into all of our infrastructure, each piece of our digital self? What are its goals? What do our new-minted masters, those Thiel-driven souls, have in mind for us next — protection from enemies without, or dangers within, a rebellious and spied-upon people whose lives just get worse?
“That’s what data sovereignty looks like,” says Henson above. “That’s continuity of government. And that’s what AI warfare infrastructure actually looks like.”
Continuity of government — because challenged by what? If external threats only, why lie?
I don’t have the answer, but I fully stand by the question.
The little man is building his own underground evil dictator lair and dystopia management center.
I wonder if it will have underground tunnels for escape from revolutionaries, ala Ceausescu?
Hilarious that Yves mentioned the Greenbriar 2 bunks per critter and they can bring their assistant – no wives. HA!
Isn’t this just a reprise of the final scenes of “Dr
Strangelove” or “How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb”?
In that scene, each male was allotted a certain number of female assistants chosen for reproductive fitness. The assistants were to be housed in individual containers that could be emptied to the outside with the push of a button if they no longer pleased their male patrons. This was all to guarantee the survival of the human race in case of nuclear war.
Let’s hope he uses it the way Hitler used his.
No way Jose. He’s got the nukes, and he’s the type of guy that would rather kill everyone else than his great self.
Hi,
That video blew me away. So much critical information. If that’s what investigative journalism looks like, I am so impressed.
I was just reading a guide by Mark Lee Hunter, Nils Hanson, Rana Sabbagh and others, called in French “L’enquête par hypothèse : manuel de journaliste d’investigation.”
I’m half through the 82 pages document. But to see it in real life with this journalist is incredible.
Deeply disturbing.
Headlines indicate Trump wants o increase Military budget by half-again, from a $ Trillion to 1.5 trillion.
I assume that will come from cuts to medical and social services programs.
Weird how $500 billion keeps popping up. Its such a nice round number.
Speaking of number, that is the state of my mind and heart since 2026 started.
The Year of The Turd?
In the movie Civil War when the rebels finally get to the White House it is surrounded by a massive fortress wall and they have to blast their way in. Then there’s the film Panic Room where Jodie Foster holes up in the hardened safe room that many wealthy people are supposedly building inside their houses.
In other words a fortress White House does imply protection from enemies domestic rather than foreign. Back during the Cold War the plan was to get the President on his plane since even a hardened White House bunker unlikely to survive a nuclear strike.
At any rate given current events no speculation seems too far fetched.
Carolinian: …fortress White House does imply protection from enemies domestic rather than foreign. Back during the Cold War the plan was to get the President on his plane since even a hardened White House bunker unlikely to survive a nuclear strike.
Yes.
A thought that occurs to me is that something that wasn’t in the equation during the Cold War were Oreshnik-style hypersonic bunker busters, developed in part to avoid going nuclear while specifically targeting enemy leadership and vital facilities. Not that Russia would be sending them US-wards without full-blown nuclear WW3. But they and their like will be part of the global military tool kit going forward.
>>>this is what the government running on AI
LMAO, please let this be true for both Rep. and Dem. future presidents….AI slop will produce so much garbage that no administration will be able to make things worse.
And at this point, that’s all we can hope more—-stop digging the hole deeper.
You may be right, but it’s guaranteed that they’ll try with every tool at their disposal to make things worse.
Peripheral, even tangential issue.
Russians evacuating embassy staff from Israel now. What do they know that the world should know?
I’m sure it has nothing to do with the nuclear warheads and Iskander missiles delivered to Iran recently.
Biblical. The Rapture for Nutting Yahoo and Mike Bassman Huckabee.
If they sleep at night, how?
Only geographically (and in other ways) challenged people can buy that nonsense. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to compare Iskander range to distance between Iran and Israel.
I wouldn’t consider possible data center version as something particularly disturbing. Yes, there are some threats and possible responses. How adequate underground facilities as a solution to EMP attacks? Yes, the infrastructure survives, but communications are lost, except we know how to dig tunnels thousand of miles long. Optics – probably survive partially, space communications, probably, will be lost.
What particularly makes “ballroom” different from other dual-use construction projects? We assume, that backup systems should be based on teletype and abacus? No. It just reflects, that requirement changes, administration is late and under pressure. It’s not a secret.
After all, we can speculate about purposes and implementation details, but the most probably, it’s a general use adaptive system.
So, answering, why it’s a secret, I would say: no special reason, just a protocol.
A crazy thought, but how about working on avoiding (civil) war in the first place?
Several technical issues come into play.
First, there will be an extreme amount of refrigeration needed for such a facility. Those servers put off a lot of heat in the aggregate. So, look for massive chiller plants, and as part of such, huge water pumping systems. Being near the Potomac River helps, so, look for massive water infrastructure build-out from the White House to the river.
Second, Washington sits very near to sea level, on a river directly connected to the Chesapeake Bay, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean. Sea level rise is a distinct danger to this project. Also, the water table here is very high, almost at ground level, so, this bunker will need massive water pumping and drainage systems. If the electricity goes out, what will run those pumps? Will the Government subcontract the job to the Mighty Corrente Hamster Power Authority?
It is much more realistic to site this project in the mountains of Virginia or West Virginia. Converting Camp David or the West Virginia Continuity of Government complex to this purpose would be more logical.
Considering the advances made recently in hypersonic missile technology, I would consider the decentralization of the data storage and handling functions as more conducive to survivability. Play the “Old Shell Game.”
“Step right up! Guess which mountain the data centre is hidden under and win a prize!”
All I can say now is that we must assume that a major break in our civilization is coming. The so called “greatest” country on Earth is going mad.
Musical Interlude. King Crimson: “Epitaph.”
Hear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MZWWyYFPGA
“Knowledge is a deadly friend
If no one sets the rules
The fate of all mankind I see
Is in the hands of fools.”
Isn’t six feet below grade pretty constant coolish warm 55-degree f? Heat pumps and heat exchangers, Potomac water.
Thjey should bring in one of Bill Gates fail safe small salt reactors. What could possibly go wrong?
Ah, yes. I had forgot the “New Atomic Age.”
Being underground also carries with it the problem of heat dissipation. The surrounding ground traps the heat better than does a liquid or a gas. The non-solids can circulate while the solid not so much.
Having worked in construction, I can attest that heat pump systems have limitations.
Stay safe and cool.
I think it’s safe to say there are various alt command sites here and there. Maybe not housing “data centers” in the past but certainly if there was a requirement to maintain access to certain data / processing capabilities planners would be looking at how to protect it. So I would not be surprised about the the East Wing project, but I doubt this would be the sole site.
On a somewhat side note my wife was at one time a senior officer on the Joint Staff Directorate for Information Resource Management down in the bowels of the Pentagon. At the time (maybe still is) the head of the White House Communications Agency was a Navy Captain. My wife noted that this officer was subsequently promoted to flag (this was a small community so every one knew each other) after it was revealed there was a massive loss of email in the Clinton White House. My wife remarked this was the only time someone got promoted for losing data.
“Thank you for your serverice!”
The Presidential Man Cave?
It really needs this:
Guggenheim offers Trump gold toilet in lieu of a Van Gogh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHFivaG8Dns
“We have met the enemy, and it is us” never seemed more appropriate.