Google will finance the construction of a mini-nuclear power plant to supply data centers
Google Corporation will finance the construction of a series of small nuclear reactors for powering data centers. They should be built by 2035, according to a widespread press release.
The American company Kairos Power will handle the construction. It will also own the constructed mini-nuclear power plants and manage their operation, it says in its message.
The total number of financed reactors is not reported. However, their total capacity should be 500 megawatts. This power should be provided by four to seven promising Kairos mini-reactors. This is comparable in power to one nuclear reactor at the Kola NPP or at the Prairie Island nuclear power plant in Minnesota.
The first reactors for Google should be operational in 2030. It is not yet clear whether the contractor will manage to build them. The first Kairos demonstration reactor, cooled by molten salts of beryllium, lithium and hydrofluoric acid, should be built and launched by 2027.
The signed contract at Google was explained by the desire to reduce the carbon footprint against the background of a sharp increase in energy consumption. Already in 2023, data centers serving neural networks and other digital services consumed 3–4 percent of all US electricity. According to forecasts, by 2030 this indicator may increase to 9 percent.
Earlier, other American digital giants announced the signing of deals with AES. In May, Amazon agreed to purchase a data center operated by the Susquehanna nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. In September, Microsoft concluded a 20-year contract for the purchase of electricity from the stopped power unit of the Three Mile Island station, the reactor will be restarted.
