为满足AI技术日益膨胀的用电需求，Meta也加入拥抱核能的行列。Meta announced on Tuesday that it plans to add 1-4 gigawatts of nuclear power generation capacity in the early 2030s to meet the electricity needs of the data center and surrounding communities. Slightly different from other tech giants, Meta is open to all reactor sizes, technologies, and locations, and there are opinions that this means the company is “casting a bigger net.”
Author of this article: Li Xiaoyin
Source: Hard AI
To meet the growing electricity demand for AI technology, Meta has also joined the ranks of embracing nuclear energy.
On Tuesday local time, Meta issued a “Request for Proposals” (RFP), stating that it plans to add 1-4 gigawatts (1 gigawatt = 1 billion watts) of nuclear power generation capacity in the early 2030s, and is seeking cooperation from relevant nuclear developers to support the growing demand for power grids supplied by data centers and surrounding communities.
Meta says:
“We believe nuclear power will play a key role in the transition to cleaner, more reliable, and more diverse power grids.”
According to the announcement, Meta is looking for “all parties involved from the beginning to the end of the project,” that is, the company is seeking partnerships with entities that can track the entire life cycle of a nuclear project, from site selection and licensing to design, construction, and operation.
Urvi Parekh, Meta's head of global energy, said:
“We want our partners to be involved from beginning to end. Meta is ready to provide long-term support and collaboration to optimize project development.”
This move marks that after tech giants such as Microsoft and Google, Meta has also begun to switch to nuclear power generation.
Wall Street heard this earlier. In September of this year, the chairman of Oracle announced plans to design a data center powered by nuclear reactors. Microsoft also reached an agreement in the same month to find a nuclear energy source for the data center's energy consumption by restarting abandoned nuclear power plants. Google said in October that it would study the use of green energy such as nuclear energy to generate electricity for its data centers.
Slightly different from other tech giants, Meta is open about all reactor sizes, technologies, and locations, which reports suggest the company is “casting a bigger net.”
Urvi Parekh said Meta is “geographically neutral” because the fastest locations to deploy reactors may not be able to connect to specific data center locations.
According to the report's analysis, this flexibility allows Meta to prioritize regions where nuclear programs can be most effectively developed.
In addition, Parekh also said that in addition to the acquisition costs when the project goes live, Meta is willing to share costs in the early stages of development:
“Compared with our ongoing investments in renewable energy projects such as solar and wind energy, nuclear energy projects are more capital intensive, have a longer development cycle, face more regulatory requirements, and are expected to have a longer operating life.”
“These differences mean we need to get involved early in the development lifecycle of nuclear energy projects and consider their operational requirements when designing contracts.”
