Tech giants see potential in nuclear reactors
The AI craze is not slowing down for a moment, which means ever-increasing power consumption. Nuclear reactors are supposed to be the solution.
Oracle obtained building permits for three small modular nuclear reactors (SMR). During its last earnings call, the company announced that it plans to use the earnings to AI data center power supply with a planned capacity of at least one gigawatt.
Microsoft is also considering nuclear power
SMRs are similar to those used on submarines and aircraft carriers. They do not have to be tailored to the specific needs of a particular ship, which reduces production costs. The modular design makes are theoretically cheaper to operate than traditional, full-scale nuclear power plants.
Of course, a construction permit is not the same as an operating permit and will depend on the residents of the region where Oracle plans to build its reactors. The location still remains unknown. Nuclear power plants raise concerns among many people, especially after the disasters in Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Despite this, Oracle is pushing ahead with the project. The company already has 162 data centers in various stages of construction worldwideThe largest of them has a power consumption of 800 megawatts and contains clusters consisting of accelerators from NVIDIA for training advanced AI models.
Electricity bills are one of the biggest costs of maintaining a server roomright next to the price of the accelerators themselves. This is why companies are reaching for non-standard energy sources. Microsoft is also considering using nuclear reactors. It is assumed, however, that the first centers with SMR will appear at the beginning of 2030.
