To satisfy its huge vitality demand for its AI and cloud companies, Amazon is investing in nuclear energy as a cleaner possibility. After signing agreements to assist construct nuclear vitality initiatives final yr, the tech large revealed plans for an upcoming small modular reactor, or SMR, in Richland, Washington. Amazon is working with Power Northwest, Washington state’s utilities company, and X-energy, an SMR developer, to construct the Cascade Superior Power Facility.
The SMR has a smaller footprint than conventional nuclear reactors, however will nonetheless provide a modular design that may pump out as much as 960 megawatts of energy. Amazon is planning to assist develop 4 SMRs within the first part of the Cascade facility that may present an preliminary energy capability of 320 megawatts. After that, the ability has the choice to broaden to 12 items for the utmost vitality output. In response to Amazon, development on the challenge will begin someday earlier than the tip of the last decade, whereas operations are anticipated to start out within the 2030s.
Amazon is not the one massive tech firm to lean into nuclear vitality to energy its AI operations. In October of final yr, Google partnered with a nuclear vitality firm known as Kairos Energy to assemble seven SMRs throughout the US. A month later, Meta was additionally trying to construct an AI information heart powered by nuclear vitality, however reportedly ran right into a discovery of a uncommon bee species that held up plans.
