Tech Industry Wants to Lock Up Nuclear Power for AI – WSJ

Tech companies scouring the country for electricity supplies have zeroed in on a key target: America s nuclear-power plants.

The owners of roughly a third of U.S. nuclear-power plants are in talks with tech companies to provide electricity to new data centers needed to meet the demands of an artificial-intelligence boom. 

Among them, Amazon Web Services is nearing a deal for electricity supplied directly from a nuclear plant on the East Coast with Constellation Energy CEG 2.36%increase; green up pointing triangle, the largest owner of U.S. nuclear-power plants, according to people familiar with the matter. In a separate deal in March, the Amazon.com AMZN 1.91%increase; green up pointing triangle subsidiary purchased a nuclear-powered data center in Pennsylvania for $650 million.

The discussions have the potential to remove stable power generation from the grid while reliability concerns are rising across much of the U.S. and new kinds of electricity users including AI, manufacturing and transportation are significantly increasing the demand for electricity in pockets of the country. 

via www.wsj.com