Big Tech’s Nuclear Gamble: The AI Energy Dilemma
Alastair Caithness
Strategic Business Development Leader | 15+ Years in Fintech, Energy, SaaS and Financial Sectors | ?? Mental Health Advocate | Follow for Energy, Bitcoin and Blockchain updates!
Big tech is turning to old nuclear reactors and planning new ones to meet the soaring energy demands of AI-driven data centers. Nuclear power is being positioned as a reliable, carbon-free energy source that can sustain the industry's growth while advancing sustainability commitments.
Tech Giants Triple Down on Nuclear
Amazon, Google, and Meta formally joined a global pledge to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050. The pledge, first adopted in December 2023 at the U.N. Climate Change Conference, has gained backing from major financial institutions like Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley, alongside more than 20 national governments. The tech giants' commitment highlights their increasing dependence on nuclear energy as AI-driven data centers push energy demand to unprecedented levels.
The pledge was signed at the CERAWeek 2025 energy conference in Houston, where major energy consumers, including Dow, Occidental, Allseas, and OSGE joined the initiative. The announcement aligns with growing investments in next-generation nuclear reactors, with Amazon and Google already funding small modular reactor projects aimed at overcoming the high costs and long construction times that have plagued traditional nuclear plants. In December, Meta sought proposals to add up to 4 gigawatts of nuclear power in the U.S.
Microsoft’s Massive Data Center Expansion
When Microsoft bought a 407-acre pumpkin farm in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, it wasn’t to grow Halloween jack-o’-lanterns. Microsoft is growing data centers, essentially networked computer servers that store, retrieve, and process information. And those data centers have a growing appetite for electricity.
Microsoft paid a whopping $76 million for the pumpkin farm, which was assessed at a value of about $600,000. The company, which has since bought other nearby properties to expand its footprint to two square miles, says it will spend $3.3 billion to build its 2-million-square-foot Wisconsin data center and equip it with the specialized computer processors used for AI.
Microsoft and OpenAI, maker of the ChatGPT bot, have talked about building a linked network of five data centers. The Wisconsin facility plus four others in California, Texas, Virginia, and Brazil. Together they would constitute a massive supercomputer, dubbed Stargate, that could ultimately cost more than $100 billion and require five gigawatts of electricity, or the equivalent of the output of five average-size nuclear power plants.
The Soaring Energy Demands of AI
Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and other major tech companies are investing heavily in data centers, particularly “hyperscale” data centers that are not only massive in size but also in their processing capabilities for data-intensive tasks such as generating AI responses. A single hyperscale data center can consume as much electricity as tens or hundreds of thousands of homes, and there are already hundreds of these centers in the United States, plus thousands of smaller data centers.
In just the past year, US electric utilities have nearly doubled their estimates of how much electricity they’ll need in another five years. Electric vehicles, cryptocurrency, and a resurgence of American manufacturing are sucking up a lot of electrons, but AI is growing faster and is driving the rapid expansion of data centers. A recent report by the global investment bank Goldman Sachs forecasts that data centers will consume about 8 percent of all US electricity in 2030, up from about 3 percent today.
Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, and other so-called “tech bros” who also happen to be among the world’s richest men have thought about how the energy industry can, or must, in their view keep pace with AI’s rapid growth while also enabling Big Tech to meet its climate commitments. They have all come to the same conclusion: Nuclear energy, whatever it costs, is the only viable solution.
In a rash of recent announcements, Big Tech companies have declared that they will either be reviving existing nuclear power plants, developing next-generation nuclear reactors, or both. Dollars are also flowing to nuclear fusion projects—even though many physicists think commercial fusion power plants that generate electricity are at least decades in the future, if they ever can be built. The federal government is not only supporting this nuclear-powered vision but also subsidizing it in the name of “clean energy.” However, both the government and the tech industry are largely ignoring the known and significant downsides of nuclear power—including high costs, long construction times, accidents, nuclear weapons proliferation risks, and environmental contamination from uranium mining and radioactive waste disposal.
The Reality of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)
Moreover, small modular reactors (SMRs), touted as the future of nuclear power, face their own set of challenges. While proponents argue that SMRs can be built faster and cheaper than traditional reactors, studies suggest they could still be economically unviable due to high per-megawatt costs. Additionally, concerns over the security of nuclear materials in a decentralized system remain unresolved.
Fusion: Hope or Hype? The Future of AI-Powered Energy
Beyond nuclear fission, fusion energy companies such as Helion Energy and Commonwealth Fusion Systems have attracted significant investments from major tech firms. Despite the enthusiasm, commercial fusion energy remains speculative, with no clear timeline for when, or if, it will be commercially viable.
With nuclear power emerging as a cornerstone of Big Tech's energy strategy, the debate over its feasibility and risks intensifies. Will the gamble on nuclear energy pay off, or will the industry find itself mired in the same challenges that have plagued nuclear power for decades?
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