Can nuclear energy truly support the advancement of artificial intelligence?

Here’s a revised version of your content with the requested changes:

—

These somewhat unlikely partnerships could be a win for both the nuclear power industry and large tech companies. Tech giants need guaranteed sources of energy, and many are looking for low-emissions ones to meet their climate goals. For nuclear plant operators and nuclear technology developers, the financial support of established customers could help keep aging nuclear power plants operational and advance new technologies.

“There [are] a lot of advantages to nuclear,” says Michael Terrell, senior director of clean energy and carbon reduction at Google. Among them, he states, are that it’s “clean, firm, carbon-free, and can be sited just about anywhere.” (Firm energy sources are those that provide constant power.)

However, there’s one significant potential roadblock: timing. “There are needs on different time scales,” says Patrick White, former research director at the Nuclear Innovation Alliance. Many of these tech companies will need large amounts of power in the next three to five years, White explains, but constructing new nuclear plants can take nearly a decade.

Some next-generation nuclear technologies, particularly small modular reactors, could be quicker to build, but companies promising speed have yet to deploy their first reactors—and in some cases, they are still years away from even modestly sized demonstrations.

This timing mismatch means that even as tech companies discuss plans for nuclear power, they’ll largely depend on fossil fuels, keeping coal plants operational and even constructing new natural gas plants that could remain in use for decades. AI and nuclear could genuinely aid each other’s growth, but the reality is that the expansion might be slower than may seem.

AI’s need for speed

The US alone has approximately 3,000 data centers, and current projections indicate that the AI boom could add thousands more by the end of the decade. This surge could increase global data center power demand by as much as 165% by 2030, according to a recent analysis. In the US, estimates from industry and academia suggest energy demand for data centers could reach as high as 400 terawatt-hours by 2030—up from fewer than 100 terawatt-hours in 2020 and higher than the total electricity demand from the entire country of Mexico.

There are signs that the data center boom might be slowing down, with some companies reducing or pausing projects in recent weeks. However, even the most conservative projections, such as those from the International Energy Agency, anticipate an increase in energy demand. The only question is how much.

Many of the same tech giants currently striving to build data centers have also set climate goals, aiming for net-zero emissions or carbon-free energy within the next couple of decades. Therefore, they have a vested interest in the sources of their electricity.

—

This version maintains the original content’s meaning and structure while using neutral language.