Meta signs multi-gigawatt nuclear deals for AI data centers

(Bloomberg/Will Wade and Riley Griffin) — Meta Platforms Inc. is set to become one of the world’s biggest corporate buyers of nuclear power, striking a series of deals as technology companies rush to lock up electricity for the AI boom.

The agreements could end up totaling more than 6 gigawatts — that’s enough to power a city of about 5 million homes. The deals include purchasing electricity from three existing Vistra Corp. plants and support several small reactors that Sam Altman-backed Oklo Inc. and Bill Gates-backed TerraPower LLC are planning to build over the next decade.

Vistra shares were up as much as 16% on Friday in New York. Oklo was up as much as 19%. Meta gained as much as 0.9%.

The deals underscore Big Tech’s scramble to secure energy amid the intensifying battle for artificial intelligence dominance. US power usage is expected to climb at least 30% by 2030, with most of the new demand coming from data centers, according to energy consulting firm Grid Strategies. Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc. and Microsoft have all signed deals to tap power from nuclear reactors. Those plans have now been dwarfed by Meta’s efforts.

While Meta didn’t disclose the value of the contracts, agreements of this size can easily represent billions of dollars in total revenue for electricity generators. The new deals follow a separate June agreement to get energy from a Constellation Energy Corp. nuclear site.

Urvi Parekh, Meta’s head of global energy, said that the agreements announced Friday seek to address concerns about the shuttering of existing nuclear power plants, and reflect the need for early investment to spur new nuclear power.

“There isn’t a one size fits all approach that’s gonna get us to where the US needs to go in order for nuclear to be a material part of the energy mix,” Parekh said in an interview, noting that the company remains committed to “low-carbon energy.”

While surging US power demand for data centers has helped revive appetite for nuclear energy, hyperscalers that long pledged to go green have recently considered or pursued deals with natural gas-fired plants — generators that are usually much easier and swifter to build. Nuclear projects often take a decade to develop and build, whereas data centers can be operational far quicker, creating a more urgent need for energy.

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In 2024, Microsoft Corp. and Brookfield Asset Management’s green energy arm signed the biggest corporate clean-energy purchase agreement ever announced, involving more than 10.5 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity. That deal was estimated at the time to be worth as much as $17 billion.

Building new nuclear capacity can cost about $13 per watt for conventional reactors, and up to $24 per watt for the new, advanced technologies that companies like Oklo and TerraPower are developing according to BloombergNEF. At the high end, 6 gigawatts of new advanced nuclear would require more than $120 billion in capital costs.

And for Meta, buying that power could cost from $141 to $220 per megawatt hour for nuclear energy, compared to about $50 to $60 for gas, wind or solar, according to Rob Barnett, an analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence.

“That’s a pretty hefty number,” Barnett said in an interview. However, tech companies are willing to pay it because nuclear offers several advantages. First, it runs around the clock, unlike renewables. And the fuel costs are fairly stable, unlike gas, which can vary significantly depending on global politics and other issues. And finally, using carbon-free power will help Meta meet its green ambitions, which remains important despite recent shifts that have made it less pressing for some companies.

“While other sectors of the economy are backing away from this, large tech companies are still talking about it,” Barnett said.

Meta may be paying at least $100 per megawatt-hour for the electricity, a combined estimate that includes all three of the deals, according to a research note from Jefferies LLC Friday.

Meta’s new deals follow Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg’s repeated pledges to spend hundreds of billions of dollars through the end of the decade on AI and the infrastructure needed to support it. His most significant infrastructure projects include “Prometheus,” a 1-gigawatt data center cluster in New Albany, Ohio, which is expected to come online this year, and “Hyperion,” a rural Louisiana-based project that may scale to 5 gigawatts and come online in a couple more years.

The Hyperion project, expected to be Meta’s largest AI-focused data center, is going to be powered by at least three natural gas plants. Its utility, Entergy Corp., has applied to connect more natural gas generation to the grid as Meta seeks to scale the project.

The nuclear deals announced Friday will also help to power the Ohio-based Prometheus project. Meta declined to comment on the financial terms of the agreements.

“If we are unable to generate more electricity, that could hurt the ability of AI to grow faster,” Parekh said. “The big picture is about ensuring that we have more solutions as AI continues to grow instead of having constraints on what options and what technologies can be added to the grid.”

Under the agreement with Vistra, Meta will buy energy from the Davis-Besse and Perry reactors in Ohio, including more than 2.1 gigawatts of operating generation. It will also get an additional 433 megawatts of energy from improvements that are planned to boost output from those two plants and from its Beaver Valley facility in Pennsylvania.

The Vistra nuclear plants will continue to supply the largest US grid operated by PJM Interconnection LLC, which serves more than 67 million people from the Midwest to the mid-Atlantic.

In a separate deal with Oklo, Meta will get up to 1.2 gigawatts of capacity from reactors that Oklo is planning to build in Ohio, with the first going into service as early as 2030. Oklo is developing a 75-megawatt reactor, though it still needs approval from federal regulators. The agreement with Meta also includes a prepayment, primarily to help Oklo procure fuel.

Meta has also agreed to support development of two reactors by TerraPower capable of generating up to 690 megawatts with delivery as early as 2032. Meta also secured the rights for energy from up to six other future reactor projects that together would total 2.1 gigawatts of power.

Zuckerberg last year told investors that he sees more risk posed to his company by under-spending on AI infrastructure than he does by overspending on it. His strategy is to “aggressively front-load building capacity” in preparation for a landmark moment where Meta reaches its goal of “superintelligence,” a term describing AI that outperforms humans at many tasks.

“It’s clear that nuclear energy has to be a big part of meeting the demand for power from AI,” TerraPower CEO Chris Levesque said in an interview.

–With assistance from Naureen S. Malik.

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