AI bigwigs want to go all-in on nuclear. They also happen to be behind nuclear companies

New York

CNN

 — 

Sam Altman is the chairman of a company that promises a brighter future for humankind.

No, it's not OpenAI, the artificial intelligence company he co-founded and now runs as CEO.

It's a company called Oklo, and it's developing the kind of nuclear power technology that many tech leaders, including Altman himself, say they will need to fuel future artificial intelligence advancements.

The proliferation of electricity-hungry data centers to power our digital lives, and increasingly, the AI technology that tech giants say is the future, now means that energy demand could soon outstrip supply. And that would be a problem for tech companies who are angling for their AI technology to revolutionize almost everything about the way we live and work.

But while tech leaders have pointed to nuclear energy as essential to a climate friendly future, some industry experts wonder how much their investments will truly benefit the wider public, rather than just protecting their own businesses' ability to operate.

"I think the tech companies are looking out for their own interests, and whether those nuclear vendors are able to sell additional nuclear power plants for the public is another question," said Sharon Squassoni, a research professor at George Washington University who's studied nuclear energy and policy.

Nuclear energy has the benefit of being steady and carbon-free. But its reputation isn't great.

Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images/File

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It's clear that more energy will need to come from somewhere. Electricity demand from US data centers has grown 50% since 2020 and now accounts for 4% of the country's energy consumption; that figure could grow to 9% by 2030, UBS analysts said in a research note earlier this month. And overall power demand in the United States is expected to grow 13% to 15% a year until 2030, potentially turning electricity "into a much scarcer resource," according to JPMorgan analysts.

The electricity needs of data centers have also threatened to upend tech giants' sustainability promises.

Tech giants have pointed to the benefit of nuclear energy's reliability versus other renewable energy sources, such as solar or wind. Microsoft in September secured a deal to reopen a reactor on Three Mile Island, the site of a 1979 partial meltdown in Pennsylvania, aiming to revive a different reactor by 2028 to power its AI ambitions. Amazon and Meta have also begun working to lock in deals to secure future nuclear power for their data centers.

"Data centers operate 24/7 and they need a stable supply of electricity. They can't shut down because the wind is not blowing or the sun is down," said Anna Erickson, a professor at Georgia Tech who studies nuclear engineering.

Oklo isn't Altman's only nuclear energy investment. The OpenAI CEO has also invested in Helion Energy, a nuclear startup that's using a different kind of technology from Oklo. Facebook co-founder and now Asana CEO Dustin Moskovitz, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel's venture capital firm, Mithril, have also invested in Helion Energy.

And Altman isn't the only tech leader trying to cash in on the push toward nuclear.

Separately, TerraPower, which is backed and chaired by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, is in the early phases of building a new nuclear reactor in Wyoming. Google joined a $250 million funding round for nuclear startup TAE Technologies in 2022, and Amazon anchored a $500 million financing round for nuclear startup X-energy in October. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has also invested in Canadian nuclear startup General Fusion.

As of August, Peter Thiel's venture capital firm, Mithril, owned 5.3% of Oklo's shares, and the billionaire tech investor has reportedly backed other nuclear startups. Tech investor Cathie Wood's Ark Invest also invested in Oklo earlier this year. (President-elect Donald Trump's pick for energy secretary, Chris Wright, chief executive of the fracking company Liberty Energy, also serves on Oklo's board.)

The push for nuclear

Already, lawmakers are lining up to support expanding nuclear power. President Joe Biden in July signed into law the Advance Act, a bill designed to make it easier, cheaper and faster to permit and build new nuclear reactors that received bipartisan support. And during this year's COP28 climate talks, the United States joined more than 20 other countries in pledging to triple global nuclear energy capacity by 2050.

The four nuclear reactors and cooling towers are seen at the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant, Friday, May 31, 2024, in Waynesboro, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)

Mike Stewart/AP

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Some experts see the tech industry's investment as crucial for pushing forward an expensive but clean energy source that could help combat climate change.

"Let's face it, these guys who are doing AI right now, they're the ones with the money, right?" Erickson said.

Megan Wilson, chief strategy officer at General Fusion, told CNN that "as we look at the interest by tech companies… in nuclear power, what we're seeing is really a symptom of the broad recognition that we need clean, baseload power that is free of both carbon dioxide and methane emissions, that's reliable and affordable."

Although General Fusion is still in the process of proving its technology works, Wilson added that fusion is expected to be an even safer option than fission, because it is combining atoms rather than separating them, and therefore is "very hard to start and very easy to stop."

In the future, the company expects its power plants "will have a radiation profile very similar to that of a hospital that uses medical isotopes or has a cancer treatment ward," Wilson said.

But some experts have raised concerns about heavy investments in nuclear by the leaders of an industry known for pushing back against regulations that could slow it down, even when it is intended to improve safety.

"The problem here is that you have these Silicon Valley giants who have the clout, who have the power, to get a lot of what they want … and the industry's attitude, first and foremost, is fight any regulation that would interfere with their plans," said Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"I am very concerned that the safety and security rules that are really essential for protecting the public could take a real beating," Lyman said.

Oklo and TerraPower did not respond to requests for comment.

Altman's Oklo

Oklo, which was founded in 2013 by two MIT graduates, says it's developing advanced nuclear reactors to "produce abundant, affordable, clean energy at a global scale." The company's name was inspired by the Oklo region in the African country of Gabon, where scientists say Earth's only natural nuclear reactor existed some 2 billion years ago.

Oklo is building so-called "fast reactors" that it says can create greater power output from less fuel, meaning they're smaller and cheaper, and could recycle used nuclear fuel from other plants. It plans to sell power from those smaller reactors directly to customers, such as data center operators, potentially directly on-site.

AI is expected to transform all of the technology we use in the coming decades, and "you want something that's reliable and scalable and clean and (nuclear) fission is really well suited to do that," Oklo CEO and co-founder Jacob DeWitte said in May.

Oklo is aiming to build smaller, more efficient nuclear reactors that could be housed in these A-frame buildings, potentially co-located with data centers as shown in this rendering.

Gensler

Oklo's stock has doubled since it began publicly trading in May following a merger with Altman's special purpose acquisition company, AltC Acquisition Corp. That strong stock performance comes as AI growth is expected to drive up demand for nuclear power, although Oklo isn't yet making any money.

But Oklo says it's making progress toward its vision. The company received approval in September to begin site investigations for one of its small reactors in Idaho, and it says it's reached several agreements to sell future power to data center operators.

But so far, these small modular reactors are "all theory," with a long and expensive road ahead to actually generating and selling power, according to Squassoni.

Other recent US efforts to build new nuclear reactors have been plagued by delays and cost overruns. The United States also faces hurdles to accessing sufficient fuel to power new reactors, after restrictions on imports of enriched uranium from Russia began in the wake of its war in Ukraine. The US government is combing through its own nuclear stockpile to find enough fuel for some projects, while fuel enrichment efforts get off the ground.

Gates' TerraPower

Gates' TerraPower broke ground in June on its nuclear reactor "demonstration" plant, which it hopes will be operational by 2030. For now, construction at the site in Kemmerer, Wyoming, is limited to non-nuclear elements, as it awaits full regulatory approval.

TerraPower says its design is smaller and simpler than traditional nuclear reactors, and its system would use sodium for cooling, rather than traditional water-cooled reactors. The Wyoming plant is being built near a retiring coal power plant and is set to provide power to PacifiCorp, a utility company that has relied on the coal plant.

Steam billows from stacks at the Naughton Power Plant in Kemmerer, Wyoming, on January 12, 2022. The power plant is set to be closed in 2025, and TerraPower announced Kemmerer will be the site of a demonstration nuclear reactor.

Natalie Behring/AP

Like Oklo's design, TerraPower's reactors will have "passive" safety mechanisms built in, the company says. This means they're designed to automatically cool down if something goes wrong, enabling them to avoid the kinds of catastrophes associated with the industry, like the 1986 Chernobyl accident.

Gates has said he founded, and invested more than $1 billion into, TerraPower because he believes expanding nuclear energy generation is essential to combat climate change.

"This is a big step toward safe, abundant, zero-carbon energy," Gates said at the Wyoming plant's groundbreaking ceremony in June. "It's important for the future of this country that projects like this succeed."

But TerraPower and other nuclear startups still have some way to go in convincing the public that their next-generation designs aren't just feasible, but also safe.

"The industry has been pushing for loosening regulations, speeding up processes, and the Trump administration undoubtedly will try to speed things up and reduce some regulations," Squassoni said.

Gates commented on nuclear safety concerns in a June interview with NPR, saying the company welcomes regulatory scrutiny. "The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is the best in the world, and they'll question us and challenge us. And, you know, that's fantastic," he said.