Land in the area of nuclear power plants has historically never been a hit on the real estate market for obvious reasons. Soon, that may not be the case. The boom in data centers where AI infrastructure is being installed is driving up the demand for electricity — and the closer the source, the better.
Also helping investors and regulators is the fact that nuclear energy is considered “greener” because of the lack of carbon emissions.
The data center of the future – with its own… nuclear power plant
Small reactors are a possible option for meeting the large energy needs of servers
The most recent example is startup NE Edge, which has raised $1.6 billion in funding to build two data centers and additional infrastructure next to a 2-gigawatt nuclear power plant in Connecticut. 13% of the electricity produced by it will power between 25,000 and 35,000 servers – and the two objects will be directly connected to the headquarters, writes The Register.
The project met with resistance from the local public due to fears that it would cause the price of electricity to rise. The company guarantees that over the next 30 years they will invest in the region an amount of more than 1 billion dollars.
As of now, NE Edge has not yet received the green light for construction.
Amazon bought a nuclear data center for $650 million
Other servers of the company will be powered by hydrogen
Others do not have similar problems. Amazon Web Services bought nuclear-powered data centers in Pennsylvania for $650 million. Microsoft is seriously considering the opposite option – instead of the IT infrastructure coming to the NPP, the NPP coming to the IT infrastructure. For this purpose, options for small modular reactors in data centers are being considered.
