Why small nuclear reactors are powering Google

December 28, 2024January 14, 2025

To power its artificial intelligence – or AI – data centres, Google has secured a deal with Kairos Power to implement nuclear reactors in the hope of meeting its ever-increasing energy demands. The deal will introduce the first reactor sometime this decade, with more expected to follow before 2035.

The deal is still somewhat under wraps but is an interesting forecast for the future of AI tech, with more companies expected to follow Google’s example.

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Meeting demands

AI has exploded in usage in recent years, and with this comes a massive surge in the demand for energy. The grid alone can’t provide this fuel, so nuclear reactors hope to fix these shortcomings.

With an increasing demand for green energy sources coinciding with this meteoric rise of AI usage, nuclear energy seems to be the best way to satisfy all parties. Nuclear energy is a highly efficient option, providing large amounts of energy with minimal input and equally minimal waste products. This makes it the perfect middle ground between green energy, which is clean but inefficient, and fossil fuels, which are efficient but harmful, with an even greater emphasis on the ‘clean’ side of the scale.

The process is also extremely safe, with the negative connotations of the word ‘nuclear’ generating much of the aversion to its usage for energy.

Nuclear power with AI

Critics of both AI and nuclear power have insisted this approach poses a great risk to the environment, especially considering how high energy demands are to not only power AI data centres but also to cool them down.

It is unlikely that AI is going anywhere; neither is nuclear energy, which is easily the cleanest and safest option to meet energy demands. You can learn more about the link between AI and nuclear power from developers such as RAICo online https://raico.org.

As nuclear power can be produced 24 hours a day with no carbon emissions, it is a perfect match for the tech that never sleeps and can provide AI with all the fuel it needs to operate in universities, businesses, and homes.