Meta To Seek 1-4GW Of American Nuclear Power For AI

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

Meta believes it will need one to four gigawatts of nuclear power, in additional to the energy it already consumes, to fuel its AI ambitions. As such, it will put out a request for proposals (RFP) to find developers capable of supplying that level of electricity in the United States by early 2030.

"Advancing the technologies that will build the future of human connection - including the next wave of AI innovation - requires electric grids to expand and embrace new sources of reliable, clean and renewable energy," the Facebook parent company wrote in a blog post announcing the RFP on Tuesday.

But while Meta plans to continue investing in solar and wind, hyperscalers seem convinced that harnessing the atom is the only practical means of meeting AI's thirst for power while making good on its sustainability commitments.

This wouldn't be the first time Meta has pursued nuclear fission power. As we previously reported, Meta had planned to build an atomic datacenter complex, but was foiled after a rare species of bees were discovered on a prospective site, resulting in its cancellation.

Meta has become a leading developer of generative AI models with Llama 3.1 405B being among its most sophisticated. To support the development of these and future models, Zuckerberg has committed to deploying some 600,000 GPUs, which require a prodigious amount of power to run.

As we understand it, additional details regarding the nature of the RFP will be provided to qualified companies. However, we do know that Meta is looking for someone to deploy between one and four gigawatts of nuclear power, suggesting they're still a little uncertain as to theextent of power that'll be required to achieve their goals and that these plans are destined for the US.

The blog post also mentions the prospect of deploying multiple units to cut costs. Given the timeline, this suggests that Meta is very likely looking at small modular reactors (SMRs).

As their name suggests, SMRs are really just miniaturized reactors not unlike those found in nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers, which can be manufactured and co-located alongside datacenters and other industrial buildings.

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