Big Tech Is Buying Nuclear Plants. The AI Power Crisis Is That Bad.
Microsoft restarted Three Mile Island. Google signed the largest nuclear deal in corporate history. Amazon bought a data center campus next to a reactor. The AI electricity crisis is rewriting the energy map — and Big Tech is becoming the most unlikely lobby for nuclear power.
By Carlos Mendoza, Partnerships & BD · Mar 14, 2026
Big Tech companies are buying nuclear power plants to fuel AI data centers. Why AI's electricity crisis is driving a nuclear energy renaissance and what it means for the grid.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much electricity does AI consume?
Global AI data center electricity consumption is projected to reach 250-350 TWh annually by 2027, roughly equivalent to the total electricity consumption of the United Kingdom. A single GPT-4 scale training run consumes approximately 50 GWh of electricity — enough to power 4,600 US homes for a year. AI inference at scale is even more power-hungry in aggregate: OpenAI's ChatGPT alone consumes an estimated 1.7 TWh annually as of 2026. The International Energy Agency estimates that total data center electricity demand will double by 2030, with AI workloads responsible for 60-70% of the increase.
Why are tech companies choosing nuclear over renewables?
Nuclear provides baseload power — consistent, 24/7 electricity generation regardless of weather or time of day. AI data centers require 99.99% uptime and cannot tolerate power fluctuations. Solar and wind are intermittent and require battery storage at enormous scale to provide baseload reliability. A single nuclear reactor generates 1-1.4 GW continuously, equivalent to a utility-scale solar farm 5-7x larger with associated battery storage. Nuclear also has the smallest physical footprint per megawatt of any energy source, which matters for data center campuses located near population centers.
Which tech companies have signed nuclear power deals?
Microsoft signed a 20-year power purchase agreement to restart Three Mile Island Unit 1, providing 835 MW of carbon-free baseload power. Google signed the largest corporate nuclear agreement in history with Kairos Power for small modular reactors totaling 500 MW. Amazon acquired a data center campus adjacent to the Susquehanna nuclear plant in Pennsylvania and has invested in multiple SMR developers. Meta has issued RFPs for 1-4 GW of nuclear power for future data center campuses. Oracle announced plans to power a new data center with three small modular reactors.
What are small modular reactors and when will they be available?
Small modular reactors (SMRs) are nuclear reactors with output below 300 MW that can be factory-built and transported to site, reducing construction time and cost compared to traditional gigawatt-scale reactors. NuScale Power received NRC design certification in 2023, and Kairos Power, X-energy, and TerraPower are in advanced development. The first commercial SMR deployments are expected between 2029-2031. However, the timeline has slipped multiple times — NuScale's first project was cancelled in 2023 due to cost overruns — and skeptics argue that SMRs will not be available at scale before 2035.
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Topics: AI, Energy, Big Tech, Infrastructure
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