Nuclear-Powered Data Centers: Why Big Tech Goes Nuclear

Short answer: Nuclear powered data centers are the tech industry's fix for a power problem it created. AI uses so much electricity that Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Meta are buying nuclear plants and funding new reactors to keep their servers running. Many of these reactors do not exist yet.

• Short answer: why data centers are going nuclear
• Why AI power demand exploded
• What the deals actually are
• Old plants restarting vs. new small reactors
• The dangers and open questions
• What it means for you

Short answer: why data centers are going nuclear

Data centers are going nuclear because AI needs steady, round-the-clock power that solar and wind alone cannot promise. A large AI data center can draw as much electricity as a mid-sized city. Tech companies want that power to be carbon-free, always on, and locked in for decades. Nuclear checks those boxes on paper.

So the biggest AI firms are cutting deals. Some are restarting old nuclear plants. Others are paying startups to build brand-new reactors that have never run before. The pitch is clean, reliable energy for the AI boom. The catch is that a lot of it is a bet on machines that are still years away, if they arrive at all.

This page is the hub for our nuclear-for-AI cluster. It links out to deeper explainers on small modular reactor safety, the companies building these reactors, and who is funding the boom.

Why AI power demand exploded

AI power demand exploded because training and running AI models eats far more electricity than older computing. The chips that run AI use huge amounts of power and run nonstop. As companies raced to build AI, they built giant data centers full of these chips, and the grid started to feel it.

The numbers are stark. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that global data center electricity use will roughly double to about 945 terawatt-hours by 2030 — close to 3% of all electricity on Earth. The IEA says AI is the main driver, with power use from AI-focused data centers set to more than quadruple by 2030.

In the United States, the strain is sharper. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that data centers used about 4.4% of U.S. electricity in 2023, and could reach 6.7% to 12% by 2028. The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has estimated data centers could consume up to 9% of U.S. electricity by 2030. You can explore this demand on our AI grid impact tool and our data center impact explainer.

That is the hole Big Tech is trying to fill. New power plants take years to build, and grid operators cannot connect them fast enough. Solar and wind help, but they stop when the sun sets or the wind drops, and AI data centers need power every second of every day. Nuclear promises a lot of steady power from a single site, and it does not burn fossil fuels, so it jumped to the front of the line. Whether that promise arrives on time is the real question the rest of this page digs into.

What the deals actually are

The deals are long-term contracts where a tech company agrees to buy power from a nuclear plant, often one that is being restarted or newly built. Here are the ones that matter most, with real facts from the companies themselves.

Microsoft and the Three Mile Island restart

Microsoft struck the deal that made headlines. In September 2024, Constellation Energy announced it would restart Three Mile Island Unit 1, the reactor that shut down in 2019 for economic reasons. It is being renamed the Crane Clean Energy Center. Microsoft signed a 20-year deal to buy the power. Constellation says the restart will add 835 megawatts and cost about $1.6 billion, with a target restart around 2028, pending a U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission safety review.

Amazon, Talen, and X-energy

Amazon took a different path. In 2024 it bought a data center campus next to the Susquehanna nuclear plant in Pennsylvania from Talen Energy for $650 million. The plan was to plug the data center straight into the reactor. Federal regulators pushed back. In late 2024 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rejected a request to raise the power flowing to Amazon, warning it could raise costs and hurt grid reliability. The companies later restructured it into a grid-connected deal for up to 1,920 megawatts. Amazon has also backed reactor developer X-energy to build new small modular reactors.

Google and Kairos Power

Google signed a deal in October 2024 with Kairos Power to buy power from a fleet of small modular reactors totaling 500 megawatts by 2035, with the first reactor aimed to come online by 2030. Google called it the world's first corporate deal to buy power from multiple small modular reactors. None of those reactors are running yet.

Meta's nuclear search

Meta put out a public request in December 2024 asking nuclear developers to help it add 1 to 4 gigawatts of new nuclear power, starting in the early 2030s. And Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, chaired nuclear startup Oklo until stepping down in April 2025, a company we cover in our what is Oklo explainer.

Old plants restarting vs. new small reactors

These deals split into two very different bets: restarting old reactors, and building new small ones. The difference matters a lot for how real the power is.

Restarting old plants, like Microsoft's Three Mile Island deal, uses proven technology. The reactor ran for decades. The main questions are cost, safety upgrades, and regulatory approval. It is still a big project, but the machine has worked before.

The other bet is on small modular reactors, or SMRs. These are smaller factory-built reactors that companies claim will be cheaper and faster to build. The problem is simple: as of mid-2026, no small modular reactor is running commercially in the United States. Some are in early stages. TerraPower's Natrium plant in Wyoming won a construction permit, and the Department of Energy is pushing a pilot program to get reactors built. But the SMR fleet that Google, Amazon, and Meta are counting on mostly exists on paper. We break down the technology and its risks in our are small modular reactors safe explainer, and the price tag in how much a small modular reactor costs.

The dangers and open questions

The biggest danger is that much of this nuclear power does not exist yet, and building it is hard, slow, and expensive. Here are the open questions worth watching.

Reactors that are not built. Most SMR deals are promises to buy power from reactors that need years of design, licensing, and construction. History warns caution. In November 2023, NuScale and a group of Utah utilities canceled the first planned U.S. SMR project after costs climbed and the target power price rose from $58 to $89 per megawatt-hour. Oklo's first NRC application was rejected in 2022, and its reactor is still not operating. See how the two most-watched startups stack up in our Oklo vs NuScale comparison.

Slipping timelines. Nuclear projects are famous for running late and over budget. The dates in these press releases — 2028, 2030, 2035 — are targets, not guarantees. If reactors slip, tech firms may lean harder on the existing grid, which often means fossil fuels.

Who pays. This is the quiet danger. When a data center takes a nuclear plant's output, that power leaves the shared market, and other buyers may pay more. In the PJM grid region, data center demand helped drive about $23 billion in customer price increases. In June 2026, FERC ordered major grid operators to fix their rules for connecting data centers. Consumer advocates warn ordinary households can end up subsidizing the AI buildout. See our do data centers raise electric bills explainer.

Waste and siting. Nuclear power still creates radioactive waste with no permanent U.S. storage site. And reactors and data centers have to go somewhere. Towns are already fighting the noise, water use, and land grabs, as we cover in living near a data center.

What it means for you

For most people, the nuclear-for-AI boom means higher stakes on your electric bill and in your community, whether or not the reactors ever get built. Tech companies get to announce clean-energy deals today. The risk of delays, cost overruns, and higher rates can land on the public.

You do not have to take the press releases at face value. Ask who pays if a reactor slips or never gets built. Ask whether your utility is signing deals that shift costs onto households. Ask what a new reactor or data center means for your town's water, land, and power. Public utility commissions hold hearings, and many of these deals need state and federal approval, which means there are real places for residents to speak up before the concrete is poured.

You can start with our data center map to see what is planned near you, dig into the numbers with the AI grid impact tool, and find ways to push back on our fighting back page. The nuclear pivot is being sold as a clean fix. It deserves hard questions before the bill arrives.