Meta lines up massive supply of nuclear power to energize AI data centres

Attendees visit the Meta booth at the Game Developers Conference 2023 in San Francisco on March 22, 2023. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Meta has cut a trio of deals to power its artificial intelligence data centres, securing enough energy to light up the equivalent of about five million homes.

The parent company of Facebook on Friday announced agreements with TerraPower, Oklo and Vistra for nuclear power for its Prometheus AI data centre that is being built in New Albany, Ohio. Meta announced Prometheus, which will be a one gigawatt cluster spanning across multiple data centre buildings, in July. It’s anticipated to come online this year.

Financial terms of the deals with TerraPower, Oklo and Vistra were not disclosed.

The Mark Zuckerberg-led Meta said in a statement on Friday that the three deals will support up to 6.6 gigawatts of new and existing clean energy by 2035. A single gigawatt, according to a general industry standard for utilities, can power about 750,000 homes.

“These projects add reliable and firm power to the grid, reinforce America’s nuclear supply chain, and support new and existing jobs to build and operate American power plants,” the company said.

Meta said its agreement with TerraPower will provide funding that supports the development of two new Natrium units capable of generating up to 690 megawatts of firm power with delivery as early as 2032. The deal also provides Meta with rights for energy from up to six other Natrium units capable of producing 2.1 gigawatts and targeted for delivery by 2035.

Meta will also buy more than 2.1 gigawatts of energy from two operating Vistra nuclear power plants in Ohio, in addition to the energy from expansions at the two Ohio plants and a third Vistra nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania.

Vistra said that electricity from the three power plants -- Beaver Valley in Pennsylvania and Davis-Besse and Perry in Ohio -- will still run through the mid-Atlantic grid for all electricity customers. It also said the agreements with Meta “provide certainty” for it to ask federal regulators for 20-year license renewals for the reactors.

Tech companies have been under pressure in the stressed mid-Atlantic grid -- which includes Ohio and Pennsylvania -- to build new power sources to supply the entire electricity needs of their new data centres there.

Jesse Jenkins, an assistant professor of engineering at Princeton University who specializes in energy systems, said bringing Prometheus online without a new power source for it will only increase electricity rates across the mid-Atlantic grid.

Ratepayers in the mid-Atlantic are already paying higher electricity bills to support new and proposed data centres.

The deal with Oklo, which counts OpenAI’s Sam Altman as one of its largest investors, will help to develop a 1.2 gigawatt power campus in Pike County, Ohio to support Meta’s data centres in the region.

The nuclear power agreements come after Meta announced in June that it reached a 20-year deal with Constellation Energy.

By Michelle Chapman, The Associated Press