Oracle Is Designing a Data Center That Would Be Powered By Three Small Nuclear Reactors

With electricity demand from AI becoming so “crazy,” Oracle’s Larry Ellison announced the company is designing a data center that will be powered by three small nuclear reactors capable of providing more than a gigawatt of electricity. “The location and the power place we’ve located, they’ve already got building permits for three nuclear reactors,” Ellison said. “These are the small modular nuclear reactors to power the data center. This is how crazy it’s getting. This is what’s going on.” CNBC reports: Small modular nuclear reactors are new designs that promise to speed the deployment of reliable, carbon-free energy as power demand rises from data centers, manufacturing and the broader electrification of the economy. Generally, these reactors are 300 megawatts or less, about a third the size of the typical reactor in the current U.S. fleet. They would be prefabricated in several pieces and then assembled on the site, reducing the capital costs that stymie larger plants.

Right now, small modular reactors are a technology of the future, with executives in the nuclear industry generally agreeing that they won’t be commercialized in the U.S. until the 2030s. There are currently three operational small modular reactors in the world, according to the Nuclear Energy Agency. Two are in China and Russia, the central geopolitical adversaries of the U.S. A test reactor is also operational in Japan.