Big Tech Turns to Nuclear Power to Fuel AI Data Center Boom
Major technology companies are turning to nuclear energy to meet the massive power demands of expanding AI and cloud data centers while trying to honor their carbon-neutral pledges.
Microsoft makes headlines by partnering with Constellation Energy to restart a nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island, aiming to satisfy its massive data center power requirements. This move defies the recent decline of the nuclear industry in the United States, where seven reactors shut down over the last decade while only two new ones open. At the same time, global data centers multiply rapidly, with over 10,000 facilities currently operating worldwide and half of them located in the U.S.
Cloud computing and artificial intelligence drive this explosive growth, pushing data center energy consumption to approximately 4% of all U.S. electricity today. Industry researchers expect this sector's power demand to surge between 29% and 166% by 2030, potentially reaching 9% of total national electricity usage. Hyperscale data centers operated by Microsoft, Google, and Amazon account for 60% to 70% of this energy drain, creating a major hurdle for tech giants that promise to eliminate their carbon emissions by the end of the decade.
Nuclear power offers an attractive solution because fission reactors run uninterrupted for years and operate at maximum capacity over 90% of the time. Amazon recently purchases a hyperscale data center connected directly to a nuclear plant and actively hires nuclear engineers, while tech investors like Bill Gates and Sam Altman pour billions into advanced nuclear startups. These long-term investments show how Big Tech embraces nuclear energy as the key to reconciling relentless data center expansion with strict climate commitments.