Amazon, Google tap into nuclear power to fuel AI push

Amazon on Wednesday announced plans to invest in nuclear power production to fuel its data centers with clean energy, a key part of the e-commerce giant’s push to expand AI-powered services.

“Nuclear energy is safe, reliable, and can help meet the energy needs of our customers for decades to come,” said Kevin Miller, Amazon Web Services’ vice president of global data centers in a statement. The company has a goal to achieve net-zero carbon — where the amount of greenhouse gases produced equals the amount removed from the atmosphere — across its operations by 2040.

Amazon is the latest tech giant to turn to nuclear power as a source of clean energy as the demand for more power in data centers grows. Earlier this week, Google announced its partnership with California-based Kairos Power, in which Google plans to buy power produced from small nuclear reactors built by Kairos. The first reactor is scheduled to be running by 2030.

And last month Microsoft announced an agreement with the owner of the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, in which the facility would be brought back online to produce energy for Microsoft.

Amazon is partnering with Dominion Energy Virginia, Energy Northwest and Talen Energy to explore new efforts to advance nuclear energy, including the development of smaller and faster nuclear reactors. The company is also investing in Maryland-based X-Energy Reactor Company, which announced on Wednesday it’s raised $500 million in financing.

Robert Blue, chair, president and chief executive of Dominion Energy, called the partnership an “important step forward” that would fuel the development of “carbon-free power generation in Virginia,” according to a news release from the company.

The partnerships come as tech companies face more demands for electricity because of the race to build more AI services that can generate text, images and other content. Tech giants, which already invest in solar and wind technologies, are searching for new sources of clean energy amid growing pressure to limit the greenhouse gas emissions they produce as they expand their AI products. These gasses trap heat in the atmosphere, contributing to rising temperatures.

A query on OpenAI’s ChatGPT, on average, requires nearly 10 times as much electricity to process as a Google search, according to Goldman Sachs. Analysts for the firm estimate that the power needed to run data centers, where large-scale computing operations are done to support a variety of tech services, will grow 160% by 2030.

Total electricity consumption of data centers could reach more than 1,000 terawatt-hours in 2026, more than doubling the usage in 2022, according to estimates from the International Energy Agency.

Amazon’s announcement drew praise from lawmakers and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm as the United States pursues a goal of being completely dependent on clean electricity by 2035.

In July, Amazon said it hit its goal of powering its global operations, including its data centers, with 100% renewable energy in 2023, seven years ahead of its target of 2030.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.