Army Seeks Private Equity for $150B Overhaul

Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent convened a forum with about 15 top private equity firms — including Apollo, Carlyle, KKR and Cerberus — asking them to pitch “meaty” strategic projects to help fund a planned $150 billion Army infrastructure overhaul while the service currently has roughly $15 billion budgeted. Driscoll pressed for “clever” financing models and floated projects such as on-base data centers and rare-earth processing facilities, including swaps of government land in exchange for computing capacity or processing output. Attendees discussed private firms financing and constructing data centers on bases under lease agreements to accelerate development and lower capital costs. The outreach is part of the Trump administration’s effort to enlist the roughly $13 trillion private capital industry in national-security spending to close the Army’s funding gap. Cerberus attended the forum, and its founder Steve Feinberg — now deputy defense secretary — has pledged to divest his holdings.