Meta needs to make use of nuclear energy for its information facilities

Meta has confirmed its plans to make use of to gasoline US information facilities. The corporate introduced that it’s accepting proposals from nuclear vitality builders to work on the challenge, with the purpose of including between one and 4 gigawatts of nuclear vitality capability “beginning within the early 2030s.”

The corporate’s states that Meta is looking for companions which have expertise with “both Small Modular Reactors (SMR) or bigger nuclear reactors.” Axios that the corporate is “geographically agnostic” in regards to the location of potential nuclear websites. The corporate beforehand had plans to construct a nuclear-powered information middle, The Monetary Instances earlier this yr, however the plans have been scuttled after the invention of a uncommon species of bees close to the positioning.

“As new improvements deliver impactful technological developments throughout sectors and help financial progress, we consider that nuclear vitality might help present agency, baseload energy to help the expansion wants of the electrical grids that energy each our information facilities (the bodily infrastructure on which Meta’s platforms function) in addition to the communities round them,” the corporate wrote in an announcement.

Meta isn’t the one main tech firm seeking to nuclear energy to assist energy its AI ambitions. Google not too long ago introduced to construct a number of reactors within the US, with the purpose of including 500 megawatts of nuclear energy from SMRs. Microsoft additionally stated this yr it needs the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania to gasoline its AI growth.