Google said on Monday it would buy power from small modular reactor developer Kairos Power. Technology companies are increasingly turning to nuclear power to meet the growing energy needs of data centers. Google said it will buy electricity from a fleet of small modular reactors (SMRs) built by Kairos Power. Google said purchasing power from multiple SMRs sends an "important demand signal" to the market, while also making long-term investments to accelerate commercialization.
"We believe nuclear energy plays a critical role in supporting our clean growth and helping enable advances in artificial intelligence," Michael Terrell, Google's senior director of energy and climate, said on a call with reporters. "The grid needs this clean, reliable energy to support the construction of these technologies. ... We feel nuclear energy can play an important role in helping meet our needs and help us meet them cleanly and in a more round-the-clock way."
KairosPower was founded in 2016 and is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy. In July, the company began construction of its Hermes low-power demonstration reactor in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. KairosPower uses molten fluoride salts instead of water as the reactor coolant like traditional nuclear reactors.