No, you are not dreaming! Google will buy nuclear energy from the American start-up Kairos Power, which will be produced by small new generation reactors, called SMR (small modular reactor), the American technology giant announced on Monday October 14. The contract provides for the commissioning of the first Kairos SMR by 2030, with ramp-up until 2035. The objective: to provide an additional response to the enormous electricity needs of the Alphabet subsidiary.
“Google has agreed to buy a total of 500 megawatts of electricity from Kairos”, specifies the British daily The Guardian. Something to rejoice the American start-up founded in 2016: “Our partnership with Google will allow Kairos Power to progress quickly through the learning curve as we move towards cost and schedule certainty for our commercial product” , welcomed Mike Laufer, CEO and co-founder of Kairos Power, in a press release. However, not a word from either side on the amount of such a transaction.
Increasingly important energy requirements for AI
Several reasons explain why Gafams are increasingly greedy in electricity. The emergence of remote computing (cloud computing) has increased the energy consumption of major players in the sector, such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon, due to the use of server storage centers (data centers). These have become even more essential with the development of generative artificial intelligence (AI), which requires colossal quantities of data and legions of semiconductors to exploit them. Additionally, data centers also need reliable power 24/7.
To ensure that they have sufficient electricity resources, the big names in the “cloud” enter into agreements with renewable energy suppliers, “particularly in nuclear power, a source of clean energy, 24 hours a day, which can help us reliably meet electricity demand,” underlined the American company, owned by Alphabet.
Less expensive SMRs
At the end of September, Microsoft unveiled a partnership with the American group Constellation Energy, providing for the reopening of a reactor at the Three Mile Island power plant in Pennsylvania. Its second reactor has been shut down since 1979, the year during which it experienced the most serious incident in American civilian nuclear power. But that’s ancient history, since the needs are now pressing. As part of this contract spread over a period of twenty years, Microsoft would invest 1.6 billion dollars (1.4 billion euros), according to the Financial Times. For its part, Amazon purchased a data center powered by nuclear energy from Talen Energy in March 2024, recalls The Guardian. Note that billionaires like Bill Gates, Sam Altman and Jeff Bezos have all financially supported nuclear companies.
SMRs, such as that of Kairos, are new generation reactors, none of which are yet operational in the United States. Although the cost of developing prototypes is high, these reactors are expected to be much less expensive, in the long term, than conventional nuclear power plants. The reason? They are likely to be produced on an assembly line.
Another start-up, NuScale, was the first to see its SMR approved, but its most advanced project, in Idaho, was canceled at the end of 2023. At the end of 2023, Kairos received the green light from the American Commission of nuclear regulation (NRC) to start work on its first experimental reactor, construction of which began in July, in Oak Ridge (Tennessee). It aims to put this first SMR into service in 2027.