Google’s Datacenters to Be Powered by Molten Salt Nuclear Reactors by 2030

Google is partnering with Kairos Power, a small modular reactor (SMR) startup, to bring nuclear power to its data centers in Tennessee and Alabama by 2030. The project involves a 50-megawatt molten salt reactor that will supply carbon-free electricity to Google’s infrastructure, benefiting from the technology’s roots in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where early experiments with molten salt reactors were conducted in the 1950s and 1960s. The reactors will utilize TRISO fuel pellets and molten fluoride salts to generate power. Kairos Power plans to set up a simulator at the University of Tennessee to train technicians for the facility. The project is also an effort to address energy shortages hindering hyperscale datacenter expansions. While other cloud providers like Oracle and Amazon are exploring SMRs for their datacenters, Kairos stands out as one of the few approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to build such facilities. However, the project’s financial feasibility remains uncertain, as some critics argue SMRs are still too costly and complex to be a significant solution for the energy transition.