Why big tech’s nuclear plans could blow up

By Mike Wendling, BBC, 15th October 2025

Eager to find new energy sources to power artificial intelligence, big tech companies are betting on nuclear – even though there are still huge questions over public perception, cost and, perhaps most importantly, the time it will take for a potential new nuclear technology to become viable.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………. Big tech is making a big bet on nuclear – Microsoft has even recently joined the industry’s lobbying group, the World Nuclear Association.

The maker of the Xbox is not alone. Google, Amazon and others are also funding nuclear projects, albeit taking a different tack with a newer technology known as small modular reactors (SMRs).

SMRs run at cooler temperatures, theoretically reducing the risk of a meltdown, and their smaller size also means lower construction costs.

Two such small reactors already provide a relatively small amount of power to electricity grids, one each in China and Russia’s far east. So in some respects, SMRs sound like the perfect solution to the growing energy AI demand – if only it were that simple.

“Most SMRs are on paper” and haven’t progressed beyond the testing stage, says Allison Macfarlane, the former chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission and now a professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

Commercialising the technology will be difficult, Macfarlane says, because a smaller reactor core also means a less efficient reactor – producing less energy from the same amount of fuel. She estimates SMRs are years away from being financially viable.

“You just can’t get around economies of scale,” she says. “These are fun ideas. But the tech bros don’t seem to be grounded in reality.”

Undaunted, energy companies and tech giants are ploughing resources into research and pilots.

Kairos Power, Google’s partner, is hoping to generate 50 megawatts of nuclear power by 2030 – equivalent to the amount of energy needed to power a small town.

The company has set up shop in Oak Ridge, Tennessee – another noteworthy American nuclear site, one that provided crucial support to the Manhattan Project which produced the first atomic bomb.

Kairos calls Oak Ridge a “proving ground” and in a statement to the BBC said that advanced construction techniques will increase efficiency and lower costs.

But even though the company aims to boost energy generation tenfold by 2035, practically it still won’t help meet the supercharged energy demands of AI – which is ramping up right now.

“Small modular reactors can provide 24/7 clean [??] energy near data centres,” says Haider Raza, an expert in AI and energy use at the University of Essex. “But they won’t come close to solving the coming demand issue in the next year or two.”

A report released in April by the International Energy Agency noted that the power demand from data centres, which currently account for around 1.5% of the world’s electricity consumption, could double in the next five years. Beyond that, there’s huge uncertainty – both in the amount of future demand and what sources might rise to meet it.

Nuclear reactors, Raza and other experts say, may have a role in meeting the AI energy crunch, but only years into the future – and only if the industry can convince an often-sceptical public………………………………………………………………………………………….

And then there’s the issue of what to do with radioactive waste. Researchers at Stanford found that SMRs actually produce more such waste than larger conventional reactors, because more subatomic particles escape from a smaller nuclear core, contaminating surrounding materials……………………………….. https://www.bbc.co.uk/worklife/article/20251008-why-big-tech-is-going-nuclear