Google has signed a contract with a U.S. small module nuclear power plant (SMR) company to secure the power needed to operate artificial intelligence (AI).
Google announced on the 14th (local time) that U.S. start-up Kairos Power has signed a deal to buy energy from SMR in the future.
This is Google’s first nuclear power plant contract to secure the enormous energy needed to operate AI amid fierce competition for AI.
Google has decided to purchase a total of 500 megawatts (MW) of electricity from six to seven reactors running Kyros in the future.
500MW is the amount of power available to hundreds of thousands of households.
Kyros aims to operate its first small modular reactor by 2030, with additional deployments by 2035.
“We think nuclear power can play an important role in meeting our electricity needs smoothly,” said Michael Terrell, senior director of energy and climate at Google.
Kyros received permission from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) late last year to build a pilot reactor in Tennessee.
Big tech companies are turning to SMR to get huge amounts of energy needed to drive AI data centers.
These companies are already the biggest buyers of wind and solar power, but this is insufficient to meet the demand for 24-hour data centers.
Amazon, the No. 1 cloud service provider, previously acquired a data center connected to the Talen Energy Nuclear Power Plant in March, while also signing a power purchase agreement.
Microsoft also signed a 20-year electricity purchase agreement with Constellation Energy, the top U.S. nuclear power company, last month for data centers.
To that end, Constellation has decided to resume commercial operations of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant No. 1, which was the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history in March 1979, in 2028.
ChatGPT developer OpenAI has also been securing nuclear energy since 2027.
Oklo, whose board is chaired by Sam Altman, is accelerating its first SMR development with the goal of operating in 2027.
JENNIFER KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
