NEW ADVANCED DATA CENTRES WILL BE POWERED BY THREE SMALL MODULAR REACTORS

racle has designed a gigawatt-scale data centre which will be powered by a trio of small modular reactors (SMRs), The cloud services giant is involved with 162 data centres, live and under construction worldwide. 

Company Chairman and Chief Technology Officer Larry Ellison has told the media that because electricity demand - driven by artificial intelligence and data centres - is at an  all-time  high the company is turning toward next-generation nuclear power. Building permits for three SMRs have already been secured, Ellison has said.

Data centres are essential for supporting cloud services, AI development and other digital operations. The facilities require vast amounts of power to run servers, cooling systems and other infrastructure needed to store and process massive amounts of data.  According to a study published by EPRI in May, data centres could consume up to 9% of U.S. electricity generation by 2030 — more than double the amount currently used.

    Data center developers increasingly view around-the-clock nuclear power as a good match for their similarly around-the-clock needs. For example, advanced nuclear company Oklo recently said it has non-binding letters of intent for about 1,350 MW of microreactor capacity, a large majority of that for data centre customers:

*  Microsoft has  signed a power purchase agreement to reopen Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear plant in order to feed its mounting energy needs.

*NextEra Energy expressed interest in recommissioning Iowa’s Duane Arnold nuclear plant in the USA.

* Blackstone  has already made  a  US$250 million  investment in data centres – including the purchase of data centre operator QTS – and  has suggested  that micro-nuclear reactors will allow corporations  to move away from local grids.

*  Bechtel is currently  developing  a nuclear reactor in Wyoming which uses sodium as a coolant rather than water.

*Amazon reports that it  is  committed to building a data centre campus next to a nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania.

*Google has begun working with utilities around the US and internationally to assess nuclear energy’s potential to power the AI boom.

*Meta has approached developers for proposals to generate up to 4 GW of new nuclear energy.

*Oklo reports that it could deploy 12 GW of new reactor capacity over the next 20 years through a master power agreement with data centre developer Switch.