Microsoft inks deal to restart Three Mile Island nuclear reactor to fuel its voracious AI ambitions
Microsoft inks deal to restart Three Mile Island nuclear reactor to fuel its voracious AI ambitions
A lot of power for AI and cloud datacenters.
Modern AI data centers consume enormous amounts of power, and it looks like they will get even more power-hungry in the coming years as companies like Google, Microsoft, Meta, and OpenAI strive towards artificial general intelligence (AGI). Oracle has already outlined plans to use nuclear power plants for its 1-gigawatt datacenters. It looks like Microsoft plans to do the same as it just inked a deal to restart a nuclear power plant to feed its data centers, reports Bloomberg.
Personally? I don't think this is a bad idea. The less they drain from the grid, the less they consume fossil fuel.
The reactor isn't active right now, and they are a PWR design, and like the 1979 incident showed, they do fail safely.
So long as Microsoft pays for the operation of the plant? Seems reasonable to me if they're going to consume an assload of energy with or without public support.
Ironically, the power hungriness of AI might actually do good for the environment if it normalizes nuclear energy.
Quite the twist
Based on their Windows updates history, this seems like a bad idea. Nuclear boogaloo let's goooooo
I think I saw a movie like this.
It doesn't end well. 💀
There is something society could learn about itself if we spent anytime thinking honestly about how much of a dead end it is politically speaking to increase our use of nuclear power as a means of reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. Yet, when big corporate interests want it for their own reasons, it is no big thing and almost no politician will speak ill of it. Even though if some kind of disaster comes about because of it they will be left holding the bag of public opinion since that industry is so heavily regulated.