Overview
- Microsoft, Amazon and Meta have signed multi‑decade agreements that anchor nuclear plants and guarantee continuous, carbon‑free electricity for data campuses.
- Soaring electricity needs from AI and cloud computing are pressuring grids, with U.S. data centers using about 176 TWh in 2023 and projections topping 580 TWh by 2028 as interconnection backlogs grow.
- Utilities and corporate partners are reviving or extending reactors and adding capacity, with examples including Three Mile Island Unit 1, Texas’s Comanche Peak, Iowa’s Duane Arnold and Illinois’s Clinton Clean Energy Center.
- Developers are pursuing small modular reactors as on‑site, scalable 50–300 MW power sources, with projects such as Oklo’s Aurora and TerraPower’s Natrium reported as having broken ground, building on a co‑location model proven by TeraWulf’s Nautilus Cryptomine at Susquehanna.
- Licensing, permitting and financing remain constraints, and most SMRs are not expected to reach commercial operation until the late 2020s or early 2030s.