Power Surge

Artificial intelligence has turned the nuclear power switch back on.

Cloud computing giants Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are looking to new and existing nuclear installations to meet their data center energy demands, while stressing that this strategy aligns with the goal of reducing carbon emissions.

Soaring AI use will increase global data center power demand by 160% as of 2030, potentially doubling the facilities’ carbon dioxide emissions, Goldman Sachs Research estimates. The investment bank notes that a query to the AI chatbot ChatGPT uses nearly 10 times as much electricity as a Google search. Meeting AI’s demand for power will require about $50 billion for new generation capacity for U.S. data centers alone through 2030, Goldman Sachs forecasts.

To meet that projected demand, Amazon and Google are investing in projects to spur development and deployment of advanced small modular nuclear reactors that can be built and put into service more quickly than largerscale plants. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in 2023 certified the first design for such a reactor in the United States, from NuScale—but a Utah project using that design was canceled due to rising costs. Only three small modular reactors were in operation globally in 2024, one each in China and Russia and a test reactor in Japan.

For its part, Amazon is investing in projects in Washington state with utility consortium Energy Northwest to develop small modular reactors, and led a $500 million financing round for small modular reactor company X-Energy, which designed the reactor to be used in that project.

In Virginia, which is a data center powerhouse, Amazon is working with utility Dominion Energy to explore developing a modular nuclear project near its existing North Anna nuclear power plant southwest of Washington, D.C. In March, Amazon Web Services agreed to acquire Talen Energy’s Cumulus data center campus in Pennsylvania in a deal worth $650 million and to buy power from Talen’s adjacent Susquehanna nuclear power plant in Luzerne County.

“One of the fastest ways to address climate change is by transitioning our society to carbon-free energy sources, and nuclear energy is both carbon-free and able to scale,” Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman said in a blog post.

Google has signed a power-purchase agreement with Kairos Power to bring its first modular reactor online by 2030, followed by others with a goal of up to 500 megawatts of power for U.S. grids through 2035. The “passively safe” Kairos system operates at low pressure and uses a molten salt cooling system. Google says the agreement to purchase electricity from multiple reactors will help accelerate deployment of the small reactors and lower their costs.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has signed a 20-year power-purchase agreement with Constellation Energy to restart Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island Unit 1, which shut down five years ago for economic reasons. Renamed the Crane Clean Energy Center, the plant is expected to come back online in 2028, and Constellation is seeking a license renewal to at least 2054. The companion Three Mile Island Unit 2 was shuttered after it partially melted down in 1979 in the nation’s most serious nuclear power accident, according to the NRC.