TerraPower’s nuclear reactor has a secret weapon for powering AI data centers
Nuclear power startups have been pitching themselves as the antidote to what ails AI data centers: power that’s always available. Bill Gates-founded TerraPower is one of the latest to throw its hat into that ring, with Bloomberg reporting that the startup plans to announce its first data center project this year.
Why It Matters
This story touches on terrapower, nuclear, data — topics readers are actively tracking. Review and add editorial context before publishing.
Key Facts
- Fact 1: The data center project, expected to break ground in 2027, would be the company’s second power plant, with its first already under construction in Wyoming.
- Fact 2: Of all the different types of power plants, nuclear reactors have the highest capacity factor — 92.5% of the time, they generate at maximum power in the U.S.
- Fact 3: Existing reactors are slow to ramp up and down, capable of increasing or decreasing only about 5% of their total rated output per minute, according to the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR).
- Fact 4: New small modular reactors (SMRs), which many startups are pursuing, can react faster, about 10% of their rated output per minute, per NLR.
Nuclear power startups have been pitching themselves as the antidote to what ails AI data centers: power that’s always available. Bill Gates-founded TerraPower is one of the latest to throw its hat into that ring, with Bloomberg reporting that the startup plans to announce its first data center project this year.
TerraPower did not say who the customer will be, though in January, it announced that Meta had agreed to buy eight of its Natrium power plants. The data center project, expected to break ground in 2027, would be the company’s second power plant, with its first already under construction in Wyoming. Not every nuclear reactor is suited to data center duty, but TerraPower possesses one key advantage — energy storage — that promises to give it an edge over competitors.
(Original synthesis pending human/AI review — generated by the stub provider by selecting real sentences from the source material, not by writing new analysis or commentary.)
Original source: TechCrunch
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