Why is Big Tech scouting for nuclear power? | Explained Premium

Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Amazon are banking on nuclear energy to feed energy-hungry AI development.

The story so far: On October 14, Google announced the “first corporate agreement” to buy nuclear energy from multiple small modular reactors (SMR). These SMRs will be developed by Kairos Power. The initial phase of work will bring up the first SMR by 2030, and subsequent deployments will continue through 2035. Per Google, this deal will provide 500 MW of carbon-free power to U.S. electricity grid. The search giant said this agreement will help in the development of AI technologies to power major scientific advances.

Training AI models, ensuring that they remain always online, and maintaining growing data centres are energy-hungry tasks. In a 2024 Environmental Report, Google admitted that its total global greenhouse gas emissions rose by 13% in 2023 year-over-year, pointing to the “challenge of reducing emissions while compute intensity increases and we grow our technical infrastructure investment to support this AI transition.” Google has held that nuclear energy was clean, available round-the-clock (unlike solar energy), and carbon-free. In that vein, the search giant sees the next generation nuclear reactors as a way to power global data centres and its offices with the help of clean energy. Smaller sizes and modular designs further help the tech giant in faster deployment cycles.

On September 20, Microsoft and Constellation signed a 20-year power purchase agreement intended to launch the Crane Clean Energy Center (CCEC) and restart the Three Mile Island Unit 1. The deal should add around 835 MW of carbon-free energy to the grid, according to Constellation’s statement.

“This agreement is a major milestone in Microsoft’s efforts to help decarbonize the grid in support of our commitment to become carbon negative,” said Bobby Hollis, Microsoft’s VP of Energy, at the time.

Amazon this month also announced that it signed three new agreements to support nuclear energy projects, such as the construction of SMRs. In Washington, it partnered with Energy Northwest. It was further making an investment in SMR reactors and fuel developer X-energy, and partnering with Dominion Energy in Virginia.

“We also previously signed an agreement to co-locate a data centre facility next to the Talen Energy’s nuclear facility in Pennsylvania, which will directly power our data centres with carbon-free energy, and helps preserve this existing reactor,” Amazon said in a blog post.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman backed the nuclear startup Oklo, which aims to build a commercial microreactor in Idaho and have it operational in 2027, though delays could affect this, reported CNBC. Altman also invested in the nuclear fusion company Helion in 2021.