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TechOct 16, 2024

Tech Companies Are Betting Big On Nuclear Power, With Amazon Investing Over $500M To Build Small Modular Reactors

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Good things usually come in small packages, and soon, so will nuclear power. This week, Amazon and Google minted deals to secure energy from brand-new small modular reactors (SMRs), a compact and scalable type of nuclear power plant that could revolutionize energy with faster build times and improved safety. Companies are investing in these ventures due to the growing need for clean energy in cloud computing and AI, aiming for net-zero emissions as data centers increasingly require more power.

Google signed the first corporate deal to buy nuclear energy from Kairos Power’s small modular reactors, planning to add 500 megawatts of carbon-free supply to US grids by 2030.
Amazon Web Services is investing over $500M in Dominion Energy’s nuclear projects across multiple states, aiming to add ~300 megawatts of capacity to the Virginia region alone.

Atomic ambitions: Currently, only three SMRs exist worldwide, but as businesses cut through bureaucracy and prove their effectiveness, the US could welcome dozens by the 2030s. From an economic perspective, the US Department of Energy anticipates that nuclear innovation will significantly boost the economy, projecting the creation of 375K jobs by 2050 to support an expected 200 GW of advanced nuclear capacity. Capital Innovations’ Michael Underhill is optimistic about the prospects, stating, “This is the next industrial renaissance. Artificial intelligence will not happen without nuclear power.”