Meta signs deals with three nuclear companies for 6-plus GW of power

Summary

Meta today announced three deals to provide its data centers with nuclear power, one from a startup, one from a smaller energy company and one from a larger company that already operates several nuclear reactors in the U.S. Oklo and TerraPower, two startups developing small modular reactors (SMR), each signed agreements with Meta to build multiple reactors, while Vistra is selling capacity from its existing power plants. Nuclear power has become a favored power source for tech companies as their AI ambitions have grown, providing stable 24/7 electricity. Startups and existing reactors have benefitted from the race for data center power, though in different ways. Existing reactors tend to be the cheapest form of baseload capacity, but there are only so many to go around, which has pushed Meta and its peers toward SMR startups. Companies like Oklo and TerraPower are betting that by building a large number of smaller reactors, they’ll be able to bring the cost down through mass manufacturing. It’s a plausible hypothesis, though one that has yet to be tested. Meta’s deal could give SMR startups a chance to prove it. The deals are the result of a request for proposals that Meta issued in December 2024, in which Meta sought partners that could add between 1 to 4 gigawatts of generating capacity by the early 2030s. Much of the new power will flow through the PJM interconnection, a grid which covers 13 Mid-Atlantic and Midwestern states and has become saturated with data centers. The 20-year agreement with Vistra will have the most immediate impact on Meta’s energy needs. The tech company will buy a total of 2.1 gigawatts from two existing nuclear power plants, Perry and Davis-Besse in Ohio. As part of the deal, Vistra will also add additional capacity to those power plants and to its Beaver Valley power plant in Pennsylvania. Together, the upgrades will generate an additional 433 MW and are scheduled to come online in the early 2030s. Techcrunch event San Francisco | Octob...