Google has partnered with Kairos Power to support the construction of seven small nuclear power plants in the U.S., marking its first venture into this business line.
The first plant is expected to be operational by 2030, with the remaining reactors slated for deployment by 2035. These plants will be able to generate up to 500 megawatts of electricity for the company’s AI technologies — enough to power a medium-sized city.
“Nuclear solutions offer a clean, round-the-clock power source that can help us reliably meet electricity demands with carbon-free energy every hour of every day,” Google wrote in the blog post. “Advancing these power sources in close partnership with supportive local communities will rapidly drive the decarbonization of electricity grids around the world.”
The announcement follows Microsoft’s partnership with Constellation Energy to reactivate an undamaged reactor from the Three Mile Island nuclear incident in the U.S., which will power Microsoft’s AI data centers.
Experts have expressed concern that these data centers could strain the U.S. power grid due to the anticipated rapid growth in North America over the next nine years. Grid Strategies projects that in the next five years, development will increase by 4.7%, and peak electricity demand will rise by 38 gigawatts — enough to power 12.7 million homes.
