When Amazon announced last month it was investing £380m in X-energy’s advanced Small Modular Reactor another domino had fallen in a line of big tech companies that have concluded nuclear power is the solution to their biggest challenge.
Tech giants need a secure supply of zero-carbon, price-predictable electricity which is available 24/7 to power their drive for AI and quantum computing dominance. Only nuclear ticks all those boxes.
Matt Garman, CEO of Amazon Web Services, summed it up perfectly: “One of the fastest ways to address climate change is by transitioning our society to carbon-free energy sources, and nuclear energy is both carbon-free and able to scale – which is why it’s an important area of investment for Amazon.”
Amazon has joined Google, Microsoft, Meta and others in championing nuclear, announcing serious investments in the technology, be it new capacity on new sites, or repurposing sites which previously had nuclear stations. They know that nuclear is uniquely placed to help with the challenge of how to meet the huge power demand of AI with a reliable source of electricity that also protects the climate. And crucially, looking to procure their own power rather than waiting for utilities to add more capacity to the equivalent of our National Grid.
The first domino was knocked by Microsoft, announcing a 20-year power purchase agreement that could see one of the Three Mile Island units restarted by 2028. Then Google announced its order of six to seven SMRs, totalling around 500 MW of capacity. Meta too has stated that it foresees AI data centres be built next to gigawatt-scale power plants – a remarkable shift from a certain Nick Clegg who infamously opposed new nuclear in the UK claiming it wasn’t needed and would take too long, and Amazon wants to develop X-energy’s Xe-100 reactor, totalling up to 5 GW of capacity by 2039. To put that in context, the entirety of the UK’s currently generating nuclear fleet is just over 5 GW.
Whilst these reactors are planned for the US, these announcements will likely trigger similar moves in Europe, where electricity demand for data centres is predicted to more than double by 2030. And with the UK government’s ambition to make Britain a leader in AI and having announced data centres as part of the successful outcome of its recent Investment Summit, then secure, reliable and carbon free power will be needed too. Thus there is a real opportunity for us to attract new investment in UK nuclear, creating opportunities for businesses and jobs for people in our industrial heartlands.
For that to happen, there needs to be clarity and a show of confidence from the government that it’s backing nuclear. An easy win would be the publication of the UK’s green taxonomy, with nuclear’s inclusion, and for nuclear to be eligible for green bonds, so we can start attracting the same investment as other clean tech.
The government has already attracted big investment worth £6bn from four US tech firms, which have all agreed to house their data centres in the UK. Nuclear can help power them, and our ministers and leaders should be championing the opportunity, much like the US government is doing.
Nuclear can do so much more than just providing power to the grid and the UK should be taking the lead in attracting investment from companies who want to develop here. The AI revolution is hurtling towards us, and the biggest risk in securing that investment is anxiety about the availability of reliable electricity to power it. For these energy intensive industries of the future, nuclear is the answer they are already turning to internationally – we cannot afford to be left behind.
Tom Greatrex is the Chief Executive of the Nuclear Industry Association
