Top high-tech companies are partnering with nuclear power plants as a surge in AI energy needs
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There has been little change in US energy consumption over the past decade. Increased efforts to make energy use more efficient are keeping levels low. However, over the next five years, demand for electricity data centres is expected to more than double. Some estimates show that the facility will need as much energy as 2030 Japan’s entire country I’ll do it today.
“All investors are lined up to invest in the next AI breakthrough. But when it comes to energy, the reality of permits, the construction timeline of new power plants and the reality of new grid capabilities.” “All of this could slow down AI, just as research and development prepares for takeoff.”
Demand from high-tech companies comes in the midst of consumer skepticism. According to Fox News polls on how voters felt Society’s AI43% thought it was a good thing, while 47% thought it was a bad thing.
“I think it’s natural that people have all the time. I call it a mixture of hope and anxiety about new technologies and especially new technologies that AI can bring,” said Microsoft President Brad Smith. “The truth is that we all already rely on AI, even if we don’t think about it.”
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Over the next five years, demand for electricity data centres is expected to more than double. (Kurt “Cyberguy” Knutsson)
According to the 2023 vote, positive views are increasing faster than negative views, but the subgroups surveyed expressed their opinions fully. Most rural voters, white voters, women and voters over the age of 45 viewed AI as a bad thing. City voters, non-white voters, men and people under the age of 45 considered the technology good. Among the major parties, registered Republicans were the most optimistic about AI, but party approval was not more than 50%.
Despite the somewhat negative sentiment of most voters, tech companies are in power.
“AI relies on a lot of what we call computing. Many chips that do a lot of calculations and a lot of data that is accessed and stored. So, everything needs to be powered. So, just like companies that generate electricity, they must pursue new partnerships.
At least two nuclear power plants are expected to reopen thanks to the large-scale high-tech partnership.
“I think this will all be part of the country’s future growth in electricity,” Smith said. “If the utility company is investing and there’s a guarantee that someone will buy it, it makes sense to bring something like a three-mile island back online. Microsoft has arrived For a long-term advanced purchasing agreement with Constellation. ”
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Three Mile Island is located near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s capital. This site is most widely known for its 1979 Unit 2 Reactor partial meltdown. It was one of the most serious nuclear accidents in US history. The reactor was quickly taken offline in the aftermath.
“There’s a very small amount of radioactivity being released from plants,” said John “Jack” Elbain, then Vice President of Metropolitan Edison.
Although there were no detectable health effects, the incident changed the way nuclear power plants operate. Unite 1, a three-mile island, closed in 2019 for economic reasons. Constellation and Microsoft are planning to restart the reactor in 2027, now known as the Crane Energy Center. It adds over 800 megawatts of energy. It is enough to power over 800,000 homes. Nuclear energy is the most energy efficient, but energy producers say the US should continue to diversify.

The cooling tower will be found on October 30, 2024, across the Susquehanna River in Middletown, Pennsylvania, at Crane Clean Energy Center, formerly known as Three Mile Island. (Wesley La Point of the Washington Post via Getty Images)
“I think that’s going to be an important part of the mix,” said Joseph Dominguez, president and CEO of Constellation. “We still have seasonal needs in the US, where we don’t need 24/7 electricity for all our electricity, but there are still differences between day and night.”
Microsoft is working to add amount of power to the grids that its data centers use from local transmission systems.
“Our philosophy as a company is to invest in bringing far more power into the electric grid than we consume,” Smith said. “We do that in a way that ensures that none of our neighbors sees an increase in electricity bills.”
Constellation is also partnering with Meta to rescue the Clinton Clean Energy Center Central Illinois 20 more years.
“This is a combination of existing megawatts and new megawatts being developed under the great agreement with Hyperscalar,” Dominguez said.
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Aerial photos show the Amazon Web Services Data Center in Stoneridge, Virginia on July 28, 2024. (Nathan Howard/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Meta plans to add up to 4 gigawatts of nuclear power generation in the United States from the early 2030s. Amazon builds two data center complexes In Pennsylvania And use 2 gigawatts of electricity from Talen Energy’s nuclear power plant. Google is partnering with Elementl Power on three nuclear projects, each of which is expected to produce 600 megawatts.
“It’s all core. It’s a hot industry. It’s a great industry,” said the president. Donald Trump He said when he signed several executive orders in May. These aim to quadruple the number of domestic nuclear power generation within the next 25 years.
“It takes a lot of energy to win an AI race,” said White House AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks. “The new AI data centers are very hungry. They are consuming a lot of electricity. And the US electric grid hasn’t grown much over the past decade.”
Sack founded a venture capital firm, Craft Venture. Now he’s helping to pilot President Trump’s AI agenda.
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“We need to have the most infrastructure. We need the most data centers. We need the most computing power, and that means more energy,” Sachs said. “China has doubled the size of its electric grids over the past decade. We haven’t done so we need to drill baby drills and build baby builds.”