Demand for Nuclear Power Continues to Grow for Big Tech; AWS Announces Latest Nuclear Investment

Just yesterday, Google and Kairos Power announced a deal to produce and consume nuclear energy for their data centers. Today, Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced a $500 million investment towards the development of small modular reactors (SMRs).

AWS announced it has signed an agreement with Dominion Energy, a Virginia based utility company, to develop these SMRs close to their existing nuclear power station in North Anna.

“We see the need for gigawatts of power in the coming years, and there’s not going to be enough wind and solar projects to be able to meet the needs, and so nuclear is a great opportunity,” quotes AWS CEO Matthew Garman. “Also, the technology is really advancing to a place with SMRs where there’s going to be a new technology that’s going to be safe and that’s going to be easy to manufacture in a much smaller form.”

AWS is a subsidiary of Amazon and the leading force across the globe in cloud computing. According to our calculations, Northern Virginia could require up to 250 to 300 megawatts to operate all 76 AWS data centers in the region.

One data center on average has roughly 96 racks, while each rack holds around 14 servers. Each server can consume anywhere between 10 to 60 kilowatts per hour and AWS reports 76 data centers in the region as previously mentioned. Amazon estimates around 70 percent of global internet traffic goes through northern Virginia.

Dominion currently serves approximately 3,500 megawatts from 452 datacenters across its service territory throughout Virginia. Roughly 70% of the energy produced is for “Data Center Alley”, a term coined from the sheer number of datacenters in the region from all major tech players.

Dominion also projects demand for power in the region to increase by 85 percent over the course of the next 15 years.

AWS also announced a new agreement in the state of Washington with utility company Energy Northwest for the construction and operation of four SMRs.

It’s no mystery the largest tech corporations require massive amounts of energy for their data centers with nuclear energy being the optimal and most cost-effective path forward. SMRs, which are more flexible and cost-effective than traditional reactors, offer a sustainable solution for carbon-free energy. These nuclear investments are poised to help Amazon achieve their sustainability goals of net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.