The Nuclear Revival Is Real — And It’s Being Funded by AI

Every major tech company is now chasing nuclear power. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta — they all need massive amounts of reliable, carbon-free electricity for their data centers, and they’ve collectively realized that solar and wind can’t do it alone.

The data center problem

AI training runs consume staggering amounts of electricity. A single large language model training run can use as much power as a small city for weeks. Global data center electricity demand is projected to increase 255% by 2035.

Solar and wind are cheap, but they’re intermittent. You can’t train GPT-7 when the sun isn’t shining. Data centers need baseload power — 24/7, rain or shine. That means nuclear or gas. Increasingly, it means both.

What’s actually happening

Microsoft: Signed a deal to restart Three Mile Island Unit 1 (the reactor that didn’t melt down). Expected online by 2028.

Google: Partnered with Kairos Power for small modular reactors (SMRs).

Amazon: Investing in X-energy’s SMR technology and buying a nuclear-powered data center campus.

The DOE: Just backed 6+ GW of nuclear through the $26.5B Southern Company loan package.

The investment case

Uranium stocks have been on a tear. The nuclear supply chain — fuel fabrication, enrichment, reactor components — is being rebuilt after decades of underinvestment.

For energy market participants, nuclear changes the demand equation. Every GW of nuclear that comes online is a GW that doesn’t need gas for baseload. Long-term, that’s bearish for gas. Short-term (next 5-7 years), gas fills the gap while nuclear builds out.

Bottom line: Nuclear isn’t coming back because of climate policy. It’s coming back because Big Tech needs electricity that doesn’t stop when clouds roll in. Follow the money.