Big tech is turning to old reactors (and planning new ones) to power the energy-hungry data centers that artificial intelligence systems need. The dow

AI goes nuclear - Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

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2025-01-01 14:30:02

Big tech is turning to old reactors (and planning new ones) to power the energy-hungry data centers that artificial intelligence systems need. The downsides of nuclear power—including the potential for nuclear weapons proliferation—have been minimized or simply ignored.

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When Microsoft bought a 407-acre pumpkin farm in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, it wasn’t to grow Halloween jack-o’-lanterns. Microsoft is growing data centers—networked computer servers that store, retrieve, and process information. And those data centers have a growing appetite for electricity.

Microsoft paid a whopping $76 million for the pumpkin farm, which was assessed at a value of about $600,000. The company, which has since bought other nearby properties to expand its footprint to two square miles, says it will spend $3.3 billion to build its 2-million-square-foot Wisconsin data center and equip it with the specialized computer processors used for artificial intelligence (AI).