Amazon said Wednesday it had signed three agreements to develop nuclear power projects, making the e-commerce giant the latest Big Tech company to announce a nuclear deal in recent weeks amid surging demand for energy to power artificial intelligence.
The company signed deals with public utility conglomerate Energy Northwest and developer .
“Nuclear is a safe, carbon-free energy source that can help power our operations and meet our customers’ growing demands, while helping us achieve our Climate Pledge commitment to be net-zero carbon across our operations by 2040,” Amazon Web CEO Services Matt Garman said in a statement announcing the deal.
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“One of the fastest ways to address climate change is to shift our society to carbon-free energy sources, and nuclear energy is also carbon-free and scalable—which is why nuclear energy is an important investment area for Amazon,” Garman continued. . “Our agreement will encourage the development of new nuclear technologies that will produce energy for decades to come.”
Amazon.com, Inc.
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Amazon is the second major US tech company to announce an investment in a nuclear power plant this week, after Google on Monday said it signed a deal with Kairos Power to operate Kairos’ first small modular reactor by 2030, followed by additional deployments through 2035.
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“We feel nuclear can play an important role in helping meet our demand… in a way that is environmentally friendly and can be done around the clock,” Michael Terrell, senior director of energy and climate at Google, told reporters by phone.
Technology companies have signed several recent agreements with nuclear power companies this year as artificial intelligence increases electricity demand for the first time in decades.
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In March, Amazon purchased a nuclear-powered data center from Talen Energy. Last month, Microsoft and Constellation Energy signed a power deal to help restart the Three Mile Island power generating unit in Pennsylvania, the site of the US’s worst nuclear accident in 1979.
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Data center electricity use in the US is expected to triple between 2023 and 2030 and will require about 47 gigawatts of new generation capacity, according to Goldman Sachs estimates, which assume natural gas, wind and solar power will fill the gap.
Reuters contributed to this report.