Google to buy power for AI needs from small modular nuclear reactor company Kairos

Alphabet's Google said on Monday it signed the world's first corporate agreement to buy power from multiple small modular reactors to meet electricity demand for artificial intelligence.

The technology company's agreement with Kairos Power aims to bring Kairos' first small modular reactor online by 2030, followed by additional deployments through 2035.

The companies did not reveal financial details of the agreement or where in the US the plants would be built. Google said it has agreed to buy a total of 500 megawatts of power from six to seven reactors, which is smaller than the output of today's nuclear reactors.

"We feel like nuclear can play an important role in helping to meet our demand...cleanly in a way that's more around the clock," Michael Terrell, senior director for energy and climate at Google, told reporters on a call.

Technology firms have signed several recent agreements with nuclear power companies this year as artificial intelligence boosts power demand for the first time in decades.

In March, Amazon.com purchased a nuclear-powered datacentre from Talen Energy. Last month, Microsoft and Constellation Energy signed a power deal to help resurrect a unit of the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania, the site of the worst US nuclear accident in 1979.

US data centre power use is expected to roughly triple between 2023 and 2030 and will require about 47 gigawatts of new generation capacity, according to Goldman Sachs estimates, which assumed natural gas, wind and solar power would fill the gap.

Kairos will need to get full construction and design permitting from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission as well as permits from local agencies, a process that can take years.

"We're confident that this novel approach is going to improve the prospects of our projects being delivered on cost and on schedule," said Mike Laufer, CEO and co-founder of Kairos.