Oracle is planning to use three small modular reactors (SMRs) to power a 1GW datacentre, according to founder Larry Ellison.
He told investors and analysts in an earnings call this week that this “crazy” amount of computing power was needed to meet the future demands of AI.
Oracle has 162 cloud data centres in operation or under construction. The largest of these has a capacity of 800MW and will contain graphic processing units made by fellow US tech company Nvidia
Ellison said the company was in the middle of designing a gigawatt-scale server farm and had chosen a location for it, which he did not specify. He added that Oracle had already obtained building permits for the three SMRs that will power it.
He did not say which kind of SMR he had in mind. NuScale, the small nuclear specialist owned by Texas engineer Fluor, is the only company to have a design approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Another company looking to enter the market is X-energy, a Maryland-based engineer that is working on a generation-four high-temperature gas-cooled SMR.
A third contender is TerraPower, the company backed by Bill Gates, that is developing a sodium-cooled fast-neutron SMR. It is working on a demonstration project in Wyoming (see further reading).
The power demand of data centres is set to increase rapidly in the coming years as the use of AI grows. The International Energy Agency said recently that it projected that the electricity consumed by the world’s datacentres would double over the next two years.
A report by the Electric Power Research Institute, published in May, pointed out that an internet query that used AI required 2.9 watt-hours, compared with 0.3 for a conventional search. The creation of music, photos and videos could require much more power.
It added that this could lead to a “step change” in power use, with datacentres consuming up to 9% of all the electricity generated in the US.
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