“A world premiere”: Google will feed its IA servers with a nuclear reactor

Google, Kairos Power and Tennessee Valley Authority (VAT) have just signed an unprecedented agreement: from 2030, the Data Centers of the American giant located in the southern United States will partially operate thanks to a new generation nuclear reactor, installed in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. A world first.

Google will feed its data centers with a nuclear mini-reactor from 2030

Called Hermes 2, this small modular reactor cooled with melted salt – a technology known as Gen IV, never exploited commercially – will provide 50 megawatts of low carbon electricity on VAT, which will injected it into the local network. Google will then benefit from this energy “Clean and continuous” To feed its high intensity infrastructure, in Tennessee and Alabama.

This public-private partnership aims to deploy up to 500 MW of nuclear capacity by 2035. This may seem abstract, but it is the equivalent of the annual electricity consumption of a city like Lyon or more than 500,000 American households. In other words: sufficient power to support the energy explosion of the cloud, AI, and digital services 24 hours a day.

But the stake greatly exceeds Google’s only needs. The choice of the Oak Ridge site, in Tennessee, is not trivial: it was here that the Manhattan project was born, and that was designed the first pressurized water reactor. Today, the place is preparing to become a strategic hub of American nuclear innovation, with the key to a local industry and training programs co-developed with the University of Tennessee.

In addition to the industrial training effect, this project embodies a broader vision: that of a nuclear adapted to the energy challenges of artificial intelligence, more and more greedy in stable and low carbon electricity. Just Google’s data centers consume as much as 2 million American households, and this figure is called upon to double within five years.

In France too, the atom comes back, but not quite the same way

While France is preparing to massively relaunch its nuclear fleet, with six new announced EPRs and SMRs (small modular reactors) in preparation, the dynamics across the Atlantic take another form: the digital giants themselves become engines of energy innovation.

In a context of increasing geopolitical tensions, where each nation tries to secure its strategic autonomy, this type of alliance, between Cloud and Atom, between private companies and public operators, prefigures a new integrated energy model. A model in which Google is no longer content to buy electricity: it co-finances reactors, invests in supply chains, and actively participates in the country’s energy reindustrialisation. “Electricity is today a strategic resource, at the heart of our economic prosperity and our technological advance”explains Don Moul, CEO of Tennessee Valley Authority.

In this recomposition landscape, where AI, cloud and new digital infrastructure require stable, continuous, and decarbon capacities, the atom therefore becomes a centerpiece. But this time, under the leadership of the private sector, ready to take risks that states no longer assume alone.

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