Amazon.com, Google, Microsoft: AI craves nuclear power

Nuclear power should at least partially cover the rapidly increasing electricity consumption of data centers for artificial intelligence. The data companies Microsoft and Google are pursuing this strategy; now Amazon.com is following suit. But while Microsoft and Google have committed to buying nuclear power from entire reactors for years, Amazon is investing directly.

The company presented three projects on Thursday. At the center of these is the company X-energy, which is developing both new nuclear reactors and proprietary fuel for them. Amazon, several venture capitalists and the University of Michigan are investing a total of 500 million dollars in X-energy.

At the same time, Amazon wants to ensure that the so-called Small Modular Reactors (SMR) with gas cooling invented by X-energy are also accepted. To this end, the data company is financing a feasibility study to show that such SMRs can be added to the existing Columbia Generating Station nuclear power plant in Benton County, Washington. In return, Amazon will receive a right of first refusal: if the power generator Energy Northwest implements such a project, Amazon's cloud and AI service AWS (Amazon Web Services) will have the entire power supply for the first four new nuclear reactors. This would correspond to a total capacity of 320 megawatts. However, Energy Northwest is already considering twelve such reactors at the same site.

Nuclear power on both US coasts

However, the largest concentration of AI data centers in the USA is not in the west coast state of Washington, but not far from the city of Washington in the east coast state of Virginia. An even greater increase in electricity consumption is therefore expected there. The Washington state government expects electricity consumption there to double within 25 years. In Virginia, this is expected to happen in just 15 years, according to the power plant operator Dominion Energy Virginia. Amazon has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with this company.

What this means in concrete terms remains to be seen. "The MoU documents the efforts of (both companies) to jointly explore innovative ways to promote SMR development and financing", the announcement remains unclear. In addition, "costs and development risks are to be mitigated". Dominion Energy expressly does not want to accept any additional risks.

Google relies on new nuclear reactors, Microsoft on old ones

This week, Google committed to purchasing the entire electricity production of several SMRs from the company Kairos for an undisclosed period of time, up to 500 megawatts. Kairos develops SMRs with salt cooling, which are currently not ready for the market.

Microsoft, on the other hand, is encouraging the energy supplier Constellation to revive a nuclear power plant built on Three Mile Island between 1969 and 1978. It was shut down in 2019 for economic reasons, but as Microsoft is paying a handsome price for the entire electricity production for another 20 years, the reactor is set to go back online in 2028.

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